F1 | Mercedes, Valtteri Bottas: “I hope to have better luck next weekend”

From the front row to eighth place: it's not the first time Valtteri Bottas has suffered such a downgrade this year. The Finn has always been very fast on the flying lap, always managing to compete with his teammate during qualifying, but in the race Valtteri always makes something wrong. First, Bottas misses the start, where he loses several positions, finding himself sixth. At the restart, after the red flag caused by Romain Grosjean's frightening accident, Bottas was fifth, but suffered a puncture and from there his race was totally compromised. He struggled to recover positions and overtake on the track and, in the end, suffered a further puncture during the safety car caused by Sergio Perez's burning car. Bottas stops for a suspicious pit stop, in fact it seems that the team has only replaced three tyres, but not the front right. Bottas is only eighth, in another unfortunately anonymous race.

"I am grateful that Romain is well, it is the most important thing today and I am relieved that he escaped such a absurd accident – began Valtteri, who then recounted his race – I suffered a puncture while restarting; I don't think it was due to contact and I didn't even see any debris, so I'm not sure of the cause. I tried to move up the rankings, but we had more load on the wings than the others, it wasn't easy to overtake. In the end there was another puncture, but fortunately there was a safety car and I didn't lose any more positions. I need to understand what I can improve for next week; the track will be different, but many characteristics will be the same, we can take advantage of all the information gathered this weekend. Let's hope we have better luck".