17:17 – Valtteri Bottas had to watch in Portugal as Lewis Hamilton took his 92nd victory in Formula 1. The Finn crossed the finish line 25 seconds after his teammate, but he is puzzled as to why the speed was not there.
The first Portuguese Grand Prix since 1996 started very promising for Bottas. From the second starting position, he took over the lead from Hamilton on the opening lap. Carlos Sainz then briefly passed by, but the McLaren driver soon had to believe it again when Bottas had his tires warm. “The opening lap was pretty good. There were some splashes and that made it difficult. Some of the cars behind me had the upper hand on their soft tires, so I was pretty happy to take the lead,” Bottas said after the race.
After that, however, things quickly ended for Bottas, who saw Hamilton pass early in the race. The reigning world champion eventually ran away from the Finn for no less than 25 seconds. “To be honest, I had no speed today. I don’t understand why, but I had no speed”, Bottas is puzzled. He was also unable to do anything in the duel with Mercedes teammate Hamilton. “Of course I tried to defend myself, but with the speed he was getting closer there was nothing I could do. As said I don’t know why I didn’t have the speed today. I pushed hard, but I couldn’t go faster.”
Hamilton and Bottas both continued for a long time on the mediums. Hamilton was then the first to be brought in for hard tires, but Bottas wanted to stay out longer after that and finish the last stint on softs. In the end he got hard too. “I think we are for that [voor softs] had to go in a little too early. I think she is [het team] could see that I was getting some vibrations, something I noticed myself on those mediums, “Bottas said Sky F1. “That means they are almost at the end of their tether. It was too risky to do such a long stint on the softs, so we chose to win the points and drive slowly to the finish.” The fact that he was struggling with vibrations towards the end of the first stint had nothing to do with poor tire management, according to Bottas: “I don’t think tire management was the problem today, it was more the speed.”
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