Mercedes didn't prioritise championship P2 "in any way" in Sakhir GP - Valtteri Bottas

Valtteri Bottas

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Mercedes didn't prioritise championship P2 "in any way" in Sakhir GP - Bottas

Bottas could still be overtaken by Verstappen in the championship standings

Sam Hall

Thursday 10 December 2020 05:00

Valtteri Bottas left the Sakhir Grand Prix frustrated believing Mercedes failed to prioritise securing the Finn's second position in the championship.

Bottas currently sits second in the drivers' championship standings, 16 points clear of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.

With the Dutchman crashing out of the Sakhir race on lap one, a podium finish of any kind would have been enough to confirm a second consecutive championship one-two for Mercedes but a late-race pit stop blunder ended Bottas' hopes of silverware, meaning the battle will go down to the wire.

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"Second is better than third and as a team and I think we deserve to be one-two with the car we have," said Bottas.

"Obviously it’s not done yet, but at least I gained a few small points to Max. This weekend it didn’t really feel like the team prioritised that thing in any way, we just came here and tried to do the best job.

"It’s not like as a team they really prioritised me to be second in the championship so, yeah, we’ll see in Abu Dhabi. It’s a new weekend, it's going to be a more normal track instead of a Mickey Mouse track, and it will be easier to make some differences, so already look ahead to Abu Dhabi."

In the second of the two races to take place in Bahrain, Bottas was partnered with George Russell, the Williams driver standing in for Lewis Hamilton who had tested positive for Covid-19.

Bottas had started from pole but was passed by the British driver on the run to turn one and looked unable to match his team-mate's pace.

Only finishing ahead of Russell due to the Briton needing to pit to replace a punctured tyre, Bottas reflected: "I’ve never been in a team being the older guy, but as a driver you do the best job, it doesn’t matter who the team-mate is you always want to beat him."

He added: "George started with Lewis’ set-up so there was not massive things to do and he has his engineers so for sure they know what to do with the car and there’s not a really massive responsibility. If there was anything I could change and give directions I was trying to do that, otherwise pretty straightforward."