Mercedes AMG Motorsport‘s Valtteri Bottas has described the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring today as “a tough day”, after starting in second and finishing eighth.
His team-mate, the reining World Champion Lewis Hamilton, had a much more successful weekend, starting third and taking the victory.
Bottas’ weekend went from bad to worse after he locked up his tyres going into the first corner, and then made contact with the Scuderia Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, losing his front wing.
“That was a tough day and not what I expected. Far from it. The first lap was a bit messy, I had a lock-up at Turn 1 which was my mistake,” said Bottas.
“I was trying to brake as late and as hard as I could, but I locked the front-right and picked up a flat-spot.
“That caused a bit of understeer and then obviously I had the contact with Charles [Leclerc], which broke the front wing. We had to stop early as a result and that really compromised my race, as I came out in traffic and lost a lot of time.”
Bottas continued that he tried his best to make up the positions which he had lost, but the track layout meant that overtaking proved to be a challenge, but was nonetheless pleased to come away with points.
“I tried everything I could, but it was really tough to overtake. At least I got some points but we’ll analyse what happened and learn from it.” he said.
The Finn will be hopeful that he can turn this bad luck around for the remainder of the season, which resumes at Spa-Francorchamps on September 1, amid rumours that another driver could be given his seat at Mercedes, with talks surrounding Williams Racing driver George Russell, and Mercedes test and reserve driver Esteban Ocon.
