Bottas: Hungarian GP was a mess

Valtteri Bottas admits his Hungarian Grand Prix outing became a “mess” after he made early contact with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc which cost him a significant part of his front wing.

The Finn came close to taking pole in qualifying on Saturday only to miss out by a hundredth of a second. He started in P2 but things quickly turned sour as a brake lock-up started a chain of events that would see him forced to pit and go down to 20th.

The lock-up was followed by a late brake which then caused the collisions with the two other drivers.

Thereafter, he knew it would be tough to recover.

“Well, it was tough. Not what I expected, far from it,” he said in Budapest.

“After the first-lap incidents, it was a bit of a mess. I knew it was going to be tricky, I did everything I could.”

With regards to the clashes with Hamilton and Leclerc, he knows he was in the wrong, but actually didn’t know where the Monegasque driver was due to the speed he was travelling at following his late braking move.

Bottas knew 'you've just blown it' - WolffRead more

“Turn 1, I had a lock-up, that was my mistake. I was trying to brake late, and as hard as I could. I was trying to get to the outside of Max,” Bottas continued.

“But there was a bit of a nip there, on the front-right. So then with the flat spots, I gained a bit of understeer in the left-hand corner. That then made it tricky for Turn 3 with Lewis came and Charles came and I lost a big piece of front wing.

“I couldn't really see him coming, in the mirror, so that made it tricky,” he said of Leclerc.

“And, I knew I had a bad run out of that corner and there could be someone, but everything happens really quick.”

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