Bottas sure of handling pressure of Hamilton battle

Valtteri Bottas insists he is not feeling the heat of a championship fight with Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, despite errors costing him vital points at the Canadian Grand Prix. Hamilton's victory put him 29 points clear of Bottas, who could only finish fourth.

While Hamilton was able to hold onto Sebastian Vettel to benefit from the time penalty imposed on the Ferrari man and inherit the race win in Montreal, Bottas was well off the Scuderia and Hamilton's pace.

An error in Q3 meant he only had one flying effort, which was also scruffy as he qualified sixth, behind Daniel Ricciardo's Renault and Red Bull's Pierre Gasly.

Although he recovered to fourth, Bottas spent time behind both Ricciardo and Renault team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, struggling to overtake, however he sees no reason to hit the panic button just yet.

"I still felt really good in Q1 and Q2, in Q2 I had a clear idea of how to improve and where to improve, and I was really confident," said Bottas.

"Then it really came down to a silly mistake that meant I lost quite a few points, which is obviously annoying. I can't really afford many of these type of weekends if I want to fight for the title. I have to move on.

"Maybe it was a bit of a wake-up call again. I'm sure I can always learn from that. For me, thoughts are already on the French Grand Prix.

"I have no pressure. I am very happy about the situation and how everything's been going since the beginning of the year.

"I'm enjoying it. I made one mistake. Maybe at the end I was trying too much to recover that. That can happen.

"I wouldn't say anything from the last couple of races was anything to do with pressure."

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