Valtteri Bottas denied thoughts of playing a team role to help teammate Lewis Hamilton after taking pole for the Austrian Grand Prix, with the Briton down in eighth.
The Finn will be joined on the front row by championship leader Sebastian Vettel, raising suspicions that he might try to support the Briton by backing the drivers up enabling him to recover the positions lost as a result of his five-place grid penalty.
However, Bottas rejected any claim that was being considered, insisting he will be going for the win for himself and his side of the Mercedes garage.
“From what I have seen in the pre-race strategy notes, that kind of plan is not on those notes,” he said.
“We need to focus on trying to have a good start to the race and we need to win the race. Lewis can fight back from where he is starting. If you start playing games it gets
“If you start playing games it gets tricky, if the car behind gets DRS and the slipstream then with just one mistake they can get the win.
“It should be a good fight tomorrow; the target is not less than winning for us. Lewis has a good race ahead with a lot of time ahead to come back to get points for the team.”
Bottas also reflected on qualifying adding: “I enjoyed it today as the car was getting better and better. It was a decent lap in the end but not quite perfect but it was good enough.”
When asked for his perspective on whether Mercedes could use strategy to help his recovery chances, Hamilton also rubbished the idea.
“It makes no sense for Valtteri to slow down, so he will push as hard as he can to win the race,” he claimed.