Valtteri Bottas on Brazilian GP: "It would've been nice to be involved"

Bottas came into the weekend very confident after an extraordinary drive in Mexico saw him win his fourth race of the season, but lacked pace all weekend in comparison to his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

The Finn had engine issues, with the power unit turning itself off during Lap 53 and a Safety Car was summoned. Bottas had to retire from the race and he was clearly disappointed that Mercedes would still have an issue like that at this point of the season.

"It's disappointing that we had that kind of issue," Bottas told Formula 1's official website. "There was plenty happening after that, it would have been nice to have been involved.

"As I didn't gain any positions at the start and overtaking looked to be quite difficult, the aim was to try and go long in the first stint, trying to save the tyres a bit. But still I think I was still lacking a bit of pace in the first stint, due to a bit of oversteer, especially in the middle sector, so I was dropping further back, behind what would have been ideal.

"Then I wanted to go for the hard tyre because I thought that would be the one chance to go all the way with one-stop and I still felt that would be possible. But we stopped (for the second time to take the medium), I think to cover (Alex) Albon, and at that moment, I was confused and questioned the call. 

"So, it's still a question mark if I could have made it to the end with one-stop or not. In theory not, but I thought that would be my only chance. In the end, I had the engine failure, but any details about it are still to be confirmed."