Bottas was only able to take 12th place in Baku and thus experienced what is probably the most difficult race of his F1 career to date.
The Finn struggled to stay with Sebastian Vettel in the first stint of the race before falling behind Lando Norris in the pit stop phase.
The Mercedes driver was in tenth place, but fell back to 14th after struggling with the tire temperature at the safety car restart.
“Yes, it was a very similar feeling to yesterday and also on Friday,” said Bottas. “The main problem was a lack of pace and just not fast enough. Today, very early in the race, I saw that I couldn’t quite keep up with the cars in front of me, especially when the Aston Martin was in front of me, I just couldn’t keep up. Still, I’m confused and it’s really strange. “
Bottas rejected suggestions that the difference in rear wing configuration between Hamilton and his own car was what caused his struggles.
“I think it’s something that we have to check, but we know it won’t be much, it will be a tenth at most and I was way behind Lewis the whole time,” added Bottas.
On the subject of matching items
“I don’t remember having a weekend like this. Yes, there were a couple of weekends when I had bad sessions, but at some point I always got the pace. But this weekend it has been like that all along, and for the whole weekend I still haven’t understood what’s going on. I know where the limit is myself and I can’t be faster, and then you’re still six, seven, eight tenths behind.
“It’s not normal so we have to understand it before we go to France.”
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