Bottas after winning season finale: 'A very important victory'

After not quite the most spectacular season finale, Valtteri Bottas was the one to claim the victory. After a briliant qualifying yesterday he secured pole position and managed to hold on to it during the race. The Finnish driver was over the moon with his third race win.

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas had a clear goal after securing his second pole position in a row. After losing his first place to Sebastian Vettel in the first corner of the Brazil Grand Prix, he was determined not to let that happen again in Abu Dhabi. He managed to stay ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton throughout the entire race, though Hamilton came close to overtaking Bottas about ten laps before the end of the race.

Speaking to David Coulthard on the podium, he said: "It's a very important victory for me. It's been hard in the second half of the season with all the problems we've had to solve. It's good to come back like this. This weekend, with the pole position and the race win, it just couldn't be better." After that, he went on to congratulate other teams and his teammate Lewis Hamilton with his fourth world title.

"I tried to control my speed during the race," Bottas continued, "I had a lock up when I got into traffic, but apart from that I didn't have any problems. The last few laps I managed to pick up some more speed. I'm very happy and the car was also feeling great. I'd like to thank the team, I really enjoyed it this season."