Having just endured a frustrating end to the Hungarian Grand Prix, dropping from second to fifth in five laps, Valtteri Bottas was even less impressed by the comments of his Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.
The Austrian, speaking after the race, suggested he had been a “sensational wingman” to teammate Lewis Hamilton after holding off the Ferraris for much of Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring while the Briton strolled off to take the victory.
Of course, that drew immediate suggestions by some that Bottas was helping his teammate rather than challenging him, the definition of a ‘number two’ role which Wolff had insisted wasn’t the case after the use of team orders in Hockenheim.
“First of all, wingman hurts,” Bottas said in response to his team boss.
Wolff was quick to clarify, however, insisting he was only referring to the race in Budapest.
“In today’s race, starting P2, after lap one, Valtteri’s race was the perfect wingman race – and I don’t mean it in championship terms, because we have no number one, we have no number two, but it was just how he was racing.
“It was, from my standpoint, [his] best race so far with Mercedes in the last [two] years.”
Later Bottas then also amended his reaction, tweeting: “I have not called a meeting with the bosses for Toto saying I was the perfect wingman in this race. There is no need to.
“I was disappointed with my end result in the race and saw everything in a negative way for a moment. I know what he meant.
“He would have said the same about Lewis if he’d be in the same situation and had a similar race. We are on equal terms and I trust the team 100% on that. All good. We’ll keep pushing! It’ll come.”
For the 28-year-old, however, there was still little reason to be happy about how his race panned out.
“I don’t see any positives in this race for me. I wanted a better result and we thought, in theory, we should have been able to do the one-stop,” he told reporters.
“20 laps from the end, everything was feeling okay. We could control the pace and my position but then the rear tyres started to die.”
Then, with five laps to go, Vettel, who had been behind the Finn for some 30 laps, made his move.
“With Seb, he had a good run into Turn 2 after a good little battle in Turn 1. I still had my nose inside into Turn 2, he was on the outside,” he explained.
“He turned in very early for me, and there was nowhere for me to go. So we touched, and I was the only one who got damage. Fair enough, I think a racing incident.”
With a damaged front wing though, Daniel Ricciardo would quickly close and attempt a pass at Turn 1 only to result in more contact for Bottas.
“With Daniel, it was a pretty similar thing, but I was more next to him, on the inside. I had just half my front wing so I was locking up as well,” the Finn admitted.
“I am sure that he saw that I was going quite quick into the corner but he still turned in and then we touched.”
That would earn him a 10-second penalty from the stewards but would keep him in fifth place.
