‘Gutted’ Bottas needs Time to Recover from Heartbreaking Loss

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was in prime position to snatch Mercedes’ first victory of the season. However, a piece of debris at the wrong place at the wrong time resulted in him getting a puncture. The incident ruined a potential race win in the final laps of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Mercedes were attempting an alternate strategy to try and pressure Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari for the race win.

But there was a spanner in the works, two dark blue spanners, namely the Red Bulls. The two drivers collided and brought out the safety car and Bottas reacted by pitting for ultrasofts.

On the restart, Vettel dive-bombed the Mercedes but overcooked it. The Finn retook the lead with Vettel in 4th and under pressure from Sergio Perez. But the debris on the track robbed him of the win and he was out of the race.

“It’s just unfortunate and unlucky,” Bottas said. “I think this track is difficult, street circuits in general with a lot of crashes will always be an issue, this time it was so unlucky.

“I had no idea at any point that I ran over any debris, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t feel anything, so I was just very, very unlucky.

It felt like a good race to then, safety car restart everything was under control. I could pull a bit of a gap, then this happened – I just had no idea that I run over some debris, can’t say much more.”

Despite coming agonisingly close to victory and losing it, Bottas has still looked at the positives after his team-mate Lewis Hamilton won in his stead.

“It felt like the last couple of races have been quite close that Mercedes are winning,” he added. “The good thing for us as a team Lewis won, good points, but for myself, yeah… try again in two weeks.”

He admitted that he’d probably drown his sorrows with a few pints of beer.