Valtteri Bottas felt it “was a very successful day” for Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport after his third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix.
The Finn’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton won at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza and Bottas was pleased with the result and the teamwork that was required to get the strong result.
“It was a very successful day – both for me and for Lewis – and it feels good to be back on the podium,” said Bottas. “We knew the Ferraris were going to be quick today, so we wanted to give 100 per cent and put them under pressure.
“We knew we had to work together as a team today and that worked out very well for us.”
The controversial moment in the race happened on the opening lap with the contact between Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton and due to that, Bottas knew he had a good chance to be on the podium.
“After what happened in the first lap with Sebastian, I knew that there was a good chance for me to get to the podium today,” he said. “But it was still not an easy race; I did a very long first stint, trying to keep Kimi behind me on old tyres.
“I managed to still extract decent lap times out of the tyres so that Kimi never really got close enough to be able to overtake.
“Ultimately, this strategy helped both Lewis’ and my race.”
Bottas was gifted third place after the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing of Max Verstappen was handed a five second time penalty and Bottas felt that the long first stint helped him push Verstappen at the end of the race.
“After the long first stint I had the chance to take the fight to Max on fresh rubber and ended up on the podium.
“It was a really good team effort today and we managed to get more points than Ferrari even though we started behind them.
“But we know we have to keep pushing in order to be able to put them under pressure.”
