Valtteri Bottas “deserves recognition”, Sensor stopped attack on Verstappen

Toto Wolff was delighted to pay tribute to Valtteri Bottas despite another overwhelming performance by the Portuguese Grand Prix pole sitter.

Bottas had gotten off to a bad start to the 2021 season, taking a distant third place in Bahrain – where he criticized Mercedes’ “defensive” strategy – before breaking into Imola in an incident involving George Russell trying to overtake the Finn failed.

But the 31-year-old had a golden chance to turn things around in Portimao when he grabbed pole position and led the race in the early stages – only to surrender to both his teammate, race winner Sir Lewis Hamilton, and Red Bulls Max Verstappen.

Although a sensor problem did not cause him to lose his performance briefly on lap 55 of 66, Bottas stayed on the straw to set the fastest lap which, together with the 15 points he had collected for third place, gave him an additional World Championship -Point brought in.

Nevertheless, Mercedes F1 co-owner and team boss Wolff sympathized with Bottas after Imola had quoted that his driver had “taken steps backwards” and raised questions about whether he will stay with the team for another year in 2022.

“I think Valtteri put so much pressure on in the beginning and with the DRS effect here, the death of Lewis, that’s fine,” Wolff told Sky F1.

“I think these three were in a class of their own today and Valtteri would probably have gotten a shot at Max in the end if we hadn’t let him down on the engine.

“So I think we have to give him credit – it’s been a good recovery considering where he was a week ago.”

Late problems with a sensor cost him the chance to fight for P2. But leave with strong points and the fastest lap!

@ValtteriBottas #PortugueseGP pic.twitter.com/yH6x9a9ajq

– Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@ MercedesAMGF1) May 2, 2021

Check out the latest Valtteri Bottas merchandise in the official Formula 1 store

Wolff explained what happened to the sensor problem.

“It was unfortunate that he caught up with Max really well and then stabilized at 1.5 / 1.6 seconds,” added the Austrian.

“But it had to come more at the end of the race and we changed drivers to overwrite a sensor that said we were too hot with exhaust temperatures. We couldn’t override it so the engine went into protection mode and that cost him five seconds. “

Bottas himself had no answer as to why he couldn’t stop Hamilton and took the lead on lap 20.

When asked about his lack of pace, he said, “I have no idea. It was a battle with the media, but overall it was okay with the hard tires. At some point I caught Max but had a problem with a sensor and lost some power and that was it.

“The beginning was good, I didn’t have any problems, everything felt fine.

“But after a couple of laps I felt and saw that I wasn’t having enough pace and that was ultimately why Lewis got me. It was a matter of time. In this corner with DRS it was approaching at 20 / 30kph more so there is nothing to do, that’s how it goes.

“Then I had problems warming up the hard tires and couldn’t hold Max back.

“But there were a lot of points more than two weeks ago.”

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