Valtteri Bottas regrets his performance in Mexico, saying in hindsight, there were some things he would have changed.
Bottas had a Mexican GP to forget. He started on pole position, but it was all downhill from there. On the opening lap, slipstream from his car allowed Max Verstappen to pass him. Immediately after that, he was hit from behind and tumbled down the order.
The Finn never recovered and was stuck outside the points for the entire race. This allowed Mercedes’ rivals to profit, and their lead in the Constructors’ Championship is now just a solitary point.
Thanks to what happened, it was a disastrous weekend for Mercedes. In the aftermath of the race, Bottas regretted his performance in Mexico, and said that he did his best, but it wasn’t his day.
“If I’m very honest to myself, it’s easy to say afterwards probably I could have done things different,” he said, as quoted by Planet F1.
“But in that moment, I thought I was making the right decisions. If I get to relive the moment, maybe there was a way to block Max, or prevent him going outside, and maybe he would have had the chance to go inside. I don’t know.
“It’s one of these things. But at the moment, I tried my best and that’s all that I can do. And I’ve obviously watched the videos. If I would be in the same situation again, maybe I could do a better job. Maybe not.”
No excuses
However, Bottas insisted that he was not making any excuses for his performance in Mexico, and said that no one should be in the position he was in after getting pole position.
“It was a good Saturday in Mexico and I feel like if we got a pole in Mexico, I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to fight for that in these last few races,” he continued.
“So absolutely that should be the goal. But here you know, it’s a bit of a different weekend format, and we also need to focus quite a bit for Sunday.”
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