Bottas on Vettel collision - 'It sums up my season'

Valtteri Bottas has provided his opinion on the collision with Sebastian Vettel which effectively ended his chances of competing for the flag within the first lap of the French Grand Prix, saying that the incident probably "sums up his season" so far.

Within moments of Lights Out, Vettel tagged the back of Bottas' Mercedes, sending the duo spinning while the other cars sped forward, with the ensuing carnage also leading to Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly being eliminated early on.

Vettel recovered well from the incident and ended up finishing fifth, but Bottas was more unfortunate, finishing in seventh.

Bottas was the innocent party in the clash, and claims that it probably "sums up his season".

“I guess today was just not my day,” said the Finn. “In a way, it sums up my season so far. [It] was a shame because we had a strong car today, but my race was lost [at] Turn 1.

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“I was on the outside going into [Turn 1], and knew that keeping the line would put me on the inside for Turn 2. Then I got a hit from behind, had a puncture and damage [to my] floor.

“After that it was difficult as the car was quite damaged, and I could feel the lack of rear end [stability.] I was sliding around, and had to do a second pitstop, which was unfortunately slow, so we lost more time there.”

To make matters more unfortunate for Bottas, his team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, enjoyed a comfortable afternoon in which he led from pole to flag and won without much incident.