Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has described Valtteri Bottas’ recovery to finish second at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as a “miracle”.
The Finn was last and a lap down on much of the field on Lap 2 of last Sunday’s race in Baku but as Safety Cars and problems for those ahead intervened, he was able to come back through the field and would out-drag Lance Stroll to cross the finish line just a tenth of a second ahead of the Williams.
Though that result would be somewhat overshadowed by the incident between team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel post-race, the Austrian certainly took note.
“His race was amazing,” he told the official F1 website.
“His start – especially Turn 2 was unfortunate – he simply bounced off the kerbs and fell far behind, and we knew that his only chance to get into the game again was a Safety Car.
“But coming from so far behind and finishing in P2 was a miracle of the sport – equal to Daniel’s [Ricciardo] performance starting from P10 and finishing first and Lance on the podium – it was one of those races where anything could happen – and it did.
“The unpredictability of the result was simply marvellous!” the Austrian added.
For Bottas, he also believes it can further help his chances of remaining with Mercedes in 2018 and beyond, with the 27-year-old only signed for a single year with the Brackley-based team.
“Of course, I just want to do good races and want to show and be on the level of the drivers that in this team should be,” he said.
“I hope [Baku’s race] was a good example, and we managed to get up and recover as a team, but yeah like Toto said, no rush, it’s still a bit early and there’s no panic or anything.
“I feel okay with the situation because as I said on Thursday I’ve been in this situation always in my career that nothing’s been clear until August/ September, so that’s okay.”