Bottas picked up his sixth new Mercedes V6 at the US GP, which earned him a five-place penalty and lost him from fourth to ninth place on the grid. In the race he could only recover to sixth place.
It was his third penalty of the year after finishing last in Italy and taking 15 places in Russia.
“I really hope we’re done now,” he said after the race in Austin. “I think both engines that are good in my engine pool seem fine. We haven’t encountered any issues with them so keep your fingers crossed that I can now go to the end with no penalties.
“Since this is a close championship fight, if you get moved five places back, the race is really affected.
“I think it was just a question that I was a little more unlucky, just before you put the engine in, they passed all the tests and reliability checks and in theory they should be fine.
“But luck wasn’t on my side, we had more failures and just bad luck. But we really hope that we have now fixed everything, but time will tell. “
Bottas had to accept three engine penalties in 2021.
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
Bottas indicated after qualifying that with the four Ferraris and McLarens in front of him on the grid, it would be difficult to progress, and that was the case.
“It was difficult, as I expected, and what made it even more difficult in the first stint was that I was behind the AlphaTauris and couldn’t get through. Of course I lost a lot of time as a result.
“Unfortunately there was no help from Safety Cars or anything like that today, so I made some progress, but quite slowly.”
About the next race in Mexico he said: “I think it will be tough without a doubt. I think Red Bull is always good there and their drive is usually good at heights too.
“We’re not expecting an easy weekend, but we’ll go there and still try to get more points than them.”
