Valtteri Bottas says he doesn’t understand why Lewis Hamilton overtook him immediately before they started their final flying laps in qualifying.
According to Bottas Mercedes did not plan the change of positions between their two drivers at the end of Q3. He said Hamilton’s decision to pass him at that point on the track compromised his tyre preparation on his out-lap.“All weekend we needed to have proper out-laps to get the tyres switched on,” Bottas explained. “I only got that in Q1 and then I think first run of Q2 was also pretty OK. But after that [it was] always traffic-affected and then the laps were quite messy.
“The last run in Q3, it was not planned, I was slowing down because of the Red Bull ahead to get a bit of a gap. And I think Lewis didn’t know that the was a car ahead of me, he thought I’d just slowed down for fun.
“But obviously that was incorrect and he got ahead, so then I slowed. Again we’ve discussed that internally and try to make sure ways not to happen again.”
Hamilton also overtook Charles Leclerc under similar circumstances at the beginning of his first lap in Q3. Bottas said Mercedes needed to run quick tyre out-laps to optimise their tyres.
“I think we had the quickest out-laps from all the teams,” he said. “We needed that to get the tyres ready, especially the front tyres.”
Being unable to get his tyres into the right operating window meant they were “too much on a knife edge with the temps”, said Bottas.
“When you start the lap too cold it’s so easy to have snaps here and there. And then actually you build up the tyre temperature only on the surface with wheelspin and the grip is just not there.”
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ian dearing
22nd September 2019, 8:32
He doesn’t understand? I thought he gave a perfect explanation. The Mercs needed the quickest out laps of all the teams but because of his poor positioning he ended up crawling through Sector 3. If he had of prepared properly he wouldn’t have been dawdling through the last sector. So why would Hamilton compromise his quick out lap because Bottas got it completely wrong?
joe pineapples
22nd September 2019, 8:38
+1
Ajaxn
22nd September 2019, 11:15
https://gifyu.com/image/hJP1
what is there not to understand? Unless Bottas radio that he was slowing down, there is no way for Hamilton to see this, on this track. He simply left Hamilton to guess this on a track with so many corners to unsight the driver behind. What was Bottas thinking?
bosyber (@bosyber)
23rd September 2019, 7:44
Thanks for that gif Ajaxn; I hadn’t actually seen this footage. Yeah, no, I would have been willing to believe Hamilton didn’t care about screwing Bottas, but seeing this, it’s hard to see how he could have easily stayed behind, Bottas was almost stopped there. Sure, car ahead, but maybe that’s not as bad as having cold tyres, all in all (comparing Bottas and Hamilton’s result, at least suggest HAM made the better choice by just going for it, rather than letting the tyres cool too much).
Dale
22nd September 2019, 8:59
About time this bromance ended … Lewis is abusing the fact Bottas is a nice guy, maybe now we’ll see some proper racing from the #77 car. Not there to make friends.
Neil
22nd September 2019, 10:13
Nice guy? Lol
Bottas screwed up today, watching the vid the car in front wasn’t even visible, he was either being dumb or trying to wreck Lewis qualifying.
Bottas only seems to fight against Lewis, instead of playing games he should be thankful he still has a seat next year as currently he doesn’t deserve it.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
22nd September 2019, 10:28
If it wasn’t for the fastest lap points, he’s scored as many points as Hamilton since he was given a contract extension and that is not that bad is it?
Usually Bottas is very respectful of Hamilton and they get on far better than Rosberg with Hamilton. Given they have signed him on makes it clear they had no better option no matter weather any others think he doesn’t deserve it.
Neil
22nd September 2019, 10:38
Respectful of Hamilton? If you watch closely, Hamilton is the only one he fights hard against.
Tango (@tango)
22nd September 2019, 9:03
For now Bottas is Hamilton’s closest adversary in the championship. Ham is not going to give a fig about Bottas’ outlap
Ajaxn
22nd September 2019, 10:00
Good points. They may be team mates, but Bottas remains for now, Hamilton’s closest rival.
Also what was Hamilton supppose to do? Was he suppose to slam on his brakes, sit behind Bottas untill Bottas decided to start his lap, then wait for a gap before he starts his warm up? presumably they both travelled the same distance to that point, so how is it Hamilton was set to go and Bottas was not?
How did Hamilton manage after passing Bottas, was that gap to the next car ok for Hamilton, if
so why was it not ok for Bottas. Also why didn’t Bottas take advantage of Hamilton’s slip stream?
Hamilton only has to finish ahead of Bottas to increase his lead to Bottas. Mean time Bottas as to worry about being over taken in points. it would be interesting to do the maths to see if Hamilton can finish 2nd for the remaining races and win the championship.
anon
22nd September 2019, 11:25
Ajaxn, the answer to that is yes – if Bottas were to win every single race and Hamilton finished second, that would be a 49 point swing in Bottas’s favour. If we are to then assume that Bottas was to also get the additional bonus points for the fastest lap, that would give him another 7 points, giving him 56 in total.
Hamilton’s lead in the WDC going into this race is 63 points, so 1-2 finishes with Bottas leading Hamilton is not enough for Bottas to win – he needs Hamilton to finish much lower down in the order, or to DNF, in that scenario.
AM
22nd September 2019, 9:42
When Lewis passes him then he needs to back off even more. They agree on a running order before going out and it’s not really a free for all. If it was, he most likely wouldn’t have backed off that much, because he would have known that Hamilton was going to pass him.
And the drivers don’t get to decide when they go out.
bob (@riptide)
22nd September 2019, 11:40
But they get to decide how to manage their out lap. As someone already said, if he was still hanging back for a gap; how come Ham had no problem when he went past Bottas. Bottas was crawling at that stage, and Ham would have to have slammed his brakes on just to avoid passing Bottas.
Qeki (@qeki)
22nd September 2019, 10:24
It is these kind of situations that separate champions from winning drivers. Hamilton didn’t hesitate to take the chance to make more suitable gap for himself.
F1oSaurus (@)
22nd September 2019, 10:38
This sounds like Bottas trying to pull the same stunt he pulled in Baku. Only this time Hamilton saw through it and instead of having Hamilton’s own lap messed up, Hamilton decided to mess up Bottas’.
Bottas should either stop playing games (if he’s doing this on purpose) or he should learn to properly prepare his lap (if this happened to him by accident again).
David BR (@david-br)
22nd September 2019, 11:30
@f1osaurus Exactly, a rerun of Baku, where Bottas was supposed to be helping with a tow, not hindering.
My own reading of this is that Leclerc has jumped up a level at Ferrari, extracting a potential Vettel wasn’t ever good enough to find. Hamilton knows that he and Mercedes have to do the same, especially for next year. Bottas dawdling around the track worrying about how he can get a few tenths advantage over Hamilton is completely irrelevant. This was always a concern with rehiring Bottas. Maybe Lewis thought it would be easier and backed him being resigned too, or just wanted to be ‘positively neutral’ in case he stayed. Either way, he’s stuck with a team mate who currently looks like he’ll be little use next year.
bosyber (@bosyber)
23rd September 2019, 7:46
Oh, I just thought it was Bottas messing up himself from that gif posted above @f1osaurus, @david-br, but who knows, maybe he’s playing nice guy with some sneak? Anyway, the footage makes rather clear he left Hamilton with litte choice in the matter, I think.
Raven
22nd September 2019, 10:47
Just so you know who’s boss, Valtteri