“Mentally Important” to Score More Points Than Lewis Hamilton: Valtteri Bottas

Six races are done and dusted, but Valtteri Bottas is already giving up. After he ended the Spanish Grand Prix in 3rd place, he felt that the 2020 title is pretty much slipping through his fingers.

This is largely because he is now 43 points adrift of his teammate, and six behind the Red Bull driver. To make matters worse, Bottas got off to a sluggish start, allowing Lance Stroll’s Racing Point past him. Eventually, he overtook the Canadian, but he could not hold a candle to Verstappen and his pace.

The Finn kicked off the season in grand style after winning the Austrian Grand Prix last month. Since then, Lewis Hamilton has extended his advantage in the next few races.

“Initial analysis is just a bad start,” he said. “I think the initial getaway from the line was not quite good enough, and also my reaction time could have been a bit better, so it’s just not the perfect start when it was needed.”

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Where did it go wrong for Valtteri Bottas?

The Finn confessed that he has no idea what has gone wrong for him this season. He put in decent starts and maintained a good pace all season. Bottas even managed to keep Hamilton on his toes in qualifying, and the margins between them were small.

The Finnish driver insisted that the condensed calendar did not affect him adversely. This is in spite of the fact that six races were squeezed into seven weekends.

He continued, “It’s been okay, honestly, you know, we all had quite a long time off from F1, so we were really kind of ready and committed to go for it.

“In theory, there’s always possibilities, that helps, but like today is a big frustration because, obviously, the last two weekends I lost a lot of points compared to Lewis and this was kind of again, for me mentally would have been important to get more points than Lewis and Max.

“But didn’t happen so then it’s tough. As I said before, no doubt. I’ll find that right spirit again for the next weekend and try again.”