Perhaps with the ink still drying on his new contract, Valtteri Bottas insists he fully understood the team’s decision to tell him to stay behind Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps of the German GP.
For the Finn, it was another case of what might have been as he ran second behind Sebastian Vettel for the first half of the race and would move ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the damp conditions as his fellow countryman was caught out by traffic.
However, a decision to pit under the Safety Car caused by Vettel’s off into the barriers, put teammate Hamilton into the lead.
Bottas would attack on the first lap after the restart, trying to make a move into the hairpin and into Turn 8, but soon after the call came from chief strategist James Vowles to hold formation until the chequered flag.
“From my side, no hard feelings on the call. It made complete sense for me,” he said afterwards.
“We had the battle in the first lap, that was it. I had already lost the race before that with the Safety Car. For me, it was really bad timing so it didn’t really go my way.”
The 28-year-old would claim he was free to challenge his teammate in those first few corners after the restart, however.
“I think we had a nice battle with Lewis the first lap after the Safety Car,” he said.
“Here you need quite a big pace difference to overtake and being more or less on equal tyres it would have been really tricky.”
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Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff also explained the decision, believing the circumstances made holding station the only choice.
“First of all, we didn’t have the quickest car here and we just need to progress for the next races because that is the most important,” the Austrian said.
“But it was still raining at the time and the fight was so intense. It was all to lose with the bad luck we have had in the last few races and we wanted to keep it calm at that stage.”
