Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has denied Valtteri Bottas’ claim his strategy was too “defensive” during the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Finn had a relatively lonely run to third place at the 2021 Formula 1 season opener, finishing 37 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen after a botched second pit-stop and then a third stop on the penultimate lap for a successful fastest lap attempt.
However, Bottas, who has vowed to be more “selfish” this year, was seen having to be cut off by Wolff at the team’s post-race celebration photo and was frustrated by having been called in early for his second stop, a lap after Hamilton.
“It’s disappointing for sure,” he told the media. “The team got good points, which is a good thing, but from my side, the strategy was too much on the defensive side instead of attacking.
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“I wanted to stay out longer in the middle stint on fresher tyres, although it wouldn’t have made much difference in the end.
“I also had a slow pit-stop, which took away any opportunities, and in the end, P3 was the maximum, but the pace was quite good at times.
“We will review everything,” he added. “We managed to have two cars with different tyre choices so we could play with the strategy, but from my side, I think there should have been more to get today.”
Wolff though quickly responded to his driver, explaining the thinking behind the early second stop.
“The pitstop was there to undercut Max, and I think we would probably have been successful, but we had a problem with the right front wheel gun,” said the Austrian.
When you realize Bottas’ pit stop was longer than Mazepin’s race ? pic.twitter.com/CZwV4hgIUR
— Shaaaarl (@chalelerc_) March 29, 2021
“And then I don’t know what other strategy we could have run. The one-stop was clearly not possible.
“The medium compound wouldn’t have made it to the end, the hard in the middle stage was running out of performance. There was no other option available.
“I totally understand the frustration in the car when you have limited information and say ‘I think we could have done something else.’”
Equally, Wolff also noted Bottas’ own shortcomings…
“The outcome we wouldn’t wish for was that he lost a position at the start of the race and he couldn’t recover the gap to the two guys in front,” he added.
Bottas did end on a positive note for the team.
“If you had told us after winter testing we would have got more points than Red Bull today we would have taken it,” he acknowledged. “There are positives to take and we move on [but] it’s still very early days in the championship.”