Valtteri Bottas has suggested he is growing increasingly frustrated at having to play a support role to Lewis Hamilton with his reaction after the United States Grand Prix.
The Finn lost time letting his teammate by twice after each of Lewis’ pitstops during Sunday’s race at Circuit of the Americas but it wouldn’t enough to help the Briton to his fifth Formula 1 title as he only finished third with main rival Sebastian Vettel right behind in fourth.
“I would have been happy for him [Hamilton] to win it here,” Bottas admitted to Crash.net
“Obviously I was trying everything I could I lost myself two or three seconds every time I had to let him by, so for sure that compromised me a little bit.
“But maybe he’ll win in the next one.”
After Kimi Raikkonen took victory for Ferrari, it now means Bottas is the only top-six driver without a win this season, something he hopes to address before Abu Dhabi.
Just to cap off a tough Sunday though, the 29-year-old lost out to Vettel in the closing laps later revealing his Soft tyres had given up.
“I think it was about five laps too many for my tyres,” he said.
“I told the team, maybe three laps from the end, that the tyres were suddenly starting to go and I was struggling in all the corners for traction.
“I tried to defend [from Vettel] but he had just better life in the tyres and pulled more than five seconds in just one and a half laps, so it was pretty tough in the end.”