Valtteri Bottas completed a surprisingly successful day for the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team by claiming third place in the Singapore Grand Prix following drama for both Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull Racing‘s Max Verstappen.
After a difficult qualifying for Mercedes in which Bottas qualified sixth, the Finn kept a cool head in difficult race conditions to avoid early race drama and grab the final spot on the podium behind his race winning team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo.
“Today shows that anything is possible – that is racing!” said Bottas. “I think under normal circumstances it would have been extremely difficult for us to be on the podium. But today, everything really came to us, and we got very lucky.
“In the dry, the car was performing better than expected and the pace was very good for Lewis and me; in the wet, I struggled a bit more than him.”
The Marina Bay circuit was seen as a venue on which the Mercedes may struggle in comparison to its rivals but Bottas describes the race as ‘perfect’ and is clearly keeping one eye on the championship picture which sees him close to within twenty-three points of second place Sebastian Vettel.
“It’s nice to bring a trophy home after what has been a tricky weekend for me,” said Bottas. “But all in all it was a nearly perfect race for us as a team.
“There are still six races to go so everything is still wide open. We have been struggling quite a bit this weekend, so we need to make sure we learn from it for the future.”
