Valtteri Bottas insists he has no problem with how Daniel Ricciardo defended during the Canadian Grand Prix battle.
Having been stuck behind Nico Hulkenberg during the first stint, the Finn finally cleared the Renault only to face another one in the form of the ex-Red Bull driver.
And enjoying the opportunity to joust with the Mercedes, Ricciardo was very aggressive with how he blocked Bottas on the back straight, even forcing him to lift off on two occasions.
“It was actually a pretty good fight with Daniel,” he confirmed.
“Sometimes he was defending quite at the limit of the regulations because he was kind of waiting for me to make the move and then he would kind of block me after, at pretty high speeds.
“I wasn’t complaining because I like hard racing, so it was on the limit. It was some good defending from him and definitively didn’t make it easy for me to get past. But it was all OK.”
Ricciardo admits he wasn’t initially expecting to be able to fend off Valtteri, but after doing so successfully once, he decided to “have some fun”.
“I think I hurt my tyres a bit doing it but it was worth it,” he continued.
“Probably the most positive thing was holding off Bottas for so long and just being in that fight with a Mercedes for a few laps. That was cool.
“I would’ve have loved to have done it with Max [Verstappen] as well but he was coming with too much pace at the end with that tyre. He got me very easily.”
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Bottas’ eventual fourth-place finish saw the gap to Lewis Hamilton in the championship grow to 29 points, indicating a 22-point swing in just the past two races.
The 29-year-old isn’t getting downbeat, however.
“I have no pressure, I’m happy about the situation, how things have been going since the start of the year and really enjoying it,” he said.
“Yesterday I made a mistake and at the end of qualifying I was maybe trying too much to recover, but that can happen.
“I wouldn’t say that anything from the last couple of races had anything to do with pressure, including this weekend, so I can’t confirm that.
“I don’t think that’s what happened and I can say there’s no pressure.”