Bottas 'needing a miracle' in Formula 1 title fight with Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas believes it will now take "a miracle" for him to wrestle the 2020 Formula 1 title away from Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Starting from pole position for the Eifel Grand Prix, Bottas fought off Hamilton in the opening exchanges at the Nürburgring.

The Finn's race began to unravel when he suffered a lock-up at the start of lap 12, allowing Hamilton to claim the lead before Bottas retired six laps later with a suspected MGU-H problem.

Now trailing Hamilton by 69 points with a possible 156 to play for across the final six races of the year, Bottas has conceded his title chances are very slim.

"The gap to Lewis is pretty big in terms of points so I definitely would need a miracle, but as always, there is no point in giving up," said Bottas.

“I need to keep the bar high for me and keep trying. We will see but ‘disappointed’ is the best word.”

Given the chasm to the championship leader, Bottas is to now simply focus on taking the season a race at a time, paying little attention to the bigger picture.

“I think that is the best mindset," he added. "There is no point now non-stop calculating the points because it is a pretty big gap so really take it race by race and always set a target for the weekend and do everything I can for that.

“The mindset for me not to give up is built in me so there is no real chance I will give up and, obviously, in a couple of months when we are a lot wiser, I will know how the season went overall.”

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