Valtteri Bottas said he was unwilling to give in to Lewis Hamilton without prioritizing his own race after being told not to stop his teammate at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Hamilton had one second pit stop to chase Max Verstappen in the second half of the race after he had not found a way past the Red Bull early on. Bottas was then told that Hamilton had caught him and shouldn’t stop the championship leaders, but he didn’t give in and Hamilton had to dive inside at Turn 10, losing more than 1.5 seconds compared to his previous lap times.
« I could definitely have let him come by earlier, but I also drove my own race, » Bottas told Sky Sports. « It always calculates things and I tried to get Charles (Leclerc) out of my pit window so I could stop again and get an extra point. So the main thing in my head was my own race.» It wasn’t like that a lot (discussion). They told me not to stop him too much. As I said, I did my race too and I’m not here to let people pass – I’m here to race. That’s how it works. «
Bottas later commented on the incident, adding that he was also thinking about Hamilton’s chances of winning and the possibility of a misunderstanding if he tried to let his teammate through.
» I have the message and obviously we had a different strategy at this point, unless something crazy happened, I wasn’t really fighting with him anymore, but back then I was trying to get Charles out of my pit window so I could stop again and be in front of him. I was really concerned about not wanting to lose too much time and really focused on my racing, so it’s about balancing things out.
« Of course, as a racer, you prioritize yourself, your race, but we also work as a Team so you don’t want to ruin the win for the team if you can’t. «
» I tried to do the best I could for us as a team and for myself. It is always difficult to do such things and as a different driver in predicting what will happen and where to go. In the end, it was kind of okay. «
Hamilton had no concerns about the incident and said he didn’t even know Bottas had been instructed not to stop him.
» I think we’re the best team-mates, « said Hamilton. « Honestly, I didn’t know he had a message so I thought we were running, » and that’s perfectly fine with me, especially at the beginning of this part of this season. In my mind I thought, « OK, I have to get closer and try to overtake. »
« We had very different strategies – I wanted to get him at some point because I had much better tires. We went into Turn 10 … I thought there was a gap, then I wasn’t entirely sure and then there was a gap and Valtteri was completely fair. I hope I haven’t lost too much time.
“That’s how we win as a team. We are sometimes in the position where we have to put the team first and getting a second and a third is good, but getting a first is maximum points and that’s key. «
While studying sports journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to win the 2008 British Grand Prix and stayed for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three years at ESPN, after a time as F1 editor at the Crash Media Group, the main task was to start the English language website of F1i.com and to run it as editor.
Present at every race since the beginning of 2014, he has further expanded his freelance portfolio and worked with international titles. In addition to writing for RACER, he also works for BBC 5Live and Sky Sports in the UK, as well as titles in Japan and the Middle East.
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