Valtteri Bottas had a day to forget in Singapore after the Finn found himself forced to retire with a mechanical issue at just after half distance having already found himself out of position and towards the back of the pack after a first lap puncture.
The Williams Martini Racing driver was unfortunate to get touched by the front wing of Jenson Button’s McLaren-Honda at the start after both drivers took avoiding action around the spinning Nico Hülkenberg, resulting in Bottas getting a puncture and making a first lap pit stop that left him towards the back of the field.
From there on in, Bottas struggled for pace, with the team finding more damage on the car than just the puncture, and he retired when well out of contention on lap 35, having already pitted a couple of laps prior to tighten up his seatbelts.
“It was really bad today,” admitted Bottas. “It all went wrong before Turn 1. Someone touched my rear and I got a puncture, so we came into the pits. We went back out again but we saw that there was some damage on the car, so the pace was really poor.
“The car was sliding a lot and we didn’t really have the speed. We tried to do everything that we could but then had a mechanical problem so we had to retire.”
