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MANAMA, December 7 – Valtteri Bottas admitted he was made to look “like a fool” at yesterday’s Sakhir Grand Prix when Lewis Hamilton’s replacement George Russell beat him with stellar momentum, albeit without reward.
The Mercedes pair finished eighth and ninth, with Bottas ahead, after an action-packed race, but it was Russell who shone as an impressive first win was snatched from him after a failed pit stop and a late puncture.
Bottas, who started from pole position, lost the lead early on and struggled to mount a challenge when the young Brit, replacing Covid-19 victim Hamilton, showed pace and poise at the front for 62 laps.
“If you don’t know things, he might have seemed like a complete fool, so that’s not pretty,” Bottas said.
“But the people who know, know how the performance was and how the end result could have been.
“It was a pretty bad race for me and it’s easy for people to say that a new guy comes in and beats the guy who’s been on the team for a few years, so it wasn’t ideal.
“I knew that on the first stint, on the medium tire, track position would be important, so obviously it was a shame to lose that.
“But in the second period, he was catching up at a pretty decent rate.”
Bottas’ attempt to answer Russell was undone when they both pitted during a safety car period and Mercedes blew their tires.
“It’s hard to explain the feeling when you come to a pit stop and you go on the same old tires that you came in with, and then you lose positions,” said the Finn.
“Obviously a big mistake from the team to be analyzed and learned from – it was a nightmare to be with old tires that had lost temperature. I was like an easy duck. “- AFP
