Valtteri Bottas felt the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix summed up his season as a whole as he finished fifth and slipped to the same place in the drivers championship.
The Finn, who hasn’t won a race this season, started on the front row of the grid but slipped back and admitted that summed up this season.
“It would have been nice to have a better ending to the season, but this race probably sums up the year pretty well – it started off well but then it went downhill from there.
“Everything felt pretty good in the beginning of the race, but then I had a lockup into Turn 5 and Turn 8 and lost some ground.”
Bottas slipped back down the field after contact with Max Verstappen which resulted in him needing to make an extra pitstop.
“I was struggling with the brakes and I also had a slow puncture after I my contact with Max, so I had to pit a second time.
“Max and I touched, it was proper battle and hard racing, but it was all fair.
“The last laps after the pit stop felt pretty long because I knew I couldn’t gain any positions.”
Bottas admits this season has not been as successful as he wanted and is aiming to come back next season stronger.
“This season didn’t go the way I had hoped, so I’m actually quite happy that it’s over.
“I will be pretty busy in the next couple of weeks, but I’m looking forward to a bit of a break in December and a fresh start in 2019.
“I will analyse everything from this season to come back stronger next year.”
