Yet another unfortunate race for Valtteri Bottas. On Sunday the Finn got off to a bad start with the relegation of three positions on the starting grid for not respecting the yellow flags regime in Losail qualifying. And it went even worse, considering the disastrous departure, after which Woodman he was even 11th. Then Bottas found pace and overtaking and seemed vying for the podium together with Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso, but a puncture on the front left ruined his race definitively: the # 77 had to go for a whole lap on three wheels and inevitably damaged the car, as did the Mercedes – so as not to make the situation worse in view of the last two Grands Prix – he preferred to call the car back to the pits.
“It has been a very disappointing day for me, and it’s a blow to finish the week like this after the weekend got off to such a promising start. I struggled to get the tires up to temperature in the formation lap and then, being on the dirty side of the grid, I had no grip at the start, so I skated a lot“, The Finn justified himself. “Then I got into a DRS-train, but once the distances between the cars increased, I was able to overtake several times. The pace was good, and we could do a long stint. But then, the rubber suddenly punctured, without any vibration or failure warning. We knew we were pushing the tire to the limit, but I had a good pace, we still felt comfortable and staying on track was our best card to play for the podium. Among other things, the puncture occurred immediately after entering the pits, it was the worst possible scenario. Also, the car was damaged a lot in the three-wheel ride, and we thought it was safer to retire and save the power unit mileage.“.
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