Valtteri Bottas believes learning from small moments will be key to maintaining his Formula 1 title bid.
The Finn made the perfect start to the season in Australia with a dominant victory and picking up the fastest lap point as the demons of 2018 were put firmly behind him.
Since then, however, he hasn’t pushed on and Lewis Hamilton has reclaimed the top spot with two consecutive wins, including a commanding win at the expense of Bottas in China.
“I’m just disappointed I didn’t win because obviously when you start from pole there’s only one goal for the race,” Valtteri said looking back to Shanghai.
“I know myself, but it was all about the start, so that’s why it was disappointing.
“It’s a sport that is all about details and about learning those and seeing if anything can be better in the future.
“Sometimes there are things that you can’t affect, maybe [China] was one of them, but we need to make sure if there’s anything we can learn.”
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The gap at the top sits at just six points between the Mercedes pair ahead of a big banana skin this weekend in Azerbaijan, where unpredictability is the norm.
Bottas knows this all too well having been on both ends of the drama with an unexpected recovery to P2 in 2017 after Lap 1 contact to agony 12 months ago with a late puncture while leading.
“That’s life, that’s how it goes sometimes, but it’s early in the season and I’m only a few points behind in the championship,” he continued.
“For sure I would prefer to still be leading but that’s the situation now and if I keep performing well I can turn it around, so that’s going to be the goal for Baku.”