F1 News

Wolff understands frustrated Bottas: ''When you only have limited info''

31 March 2021 at 07:58
Last update 31 March 2021 at 09:03
  • GPblog.com

Valtteri Bottas was not amused after the Bahrain Grand Prix. He was not able to come close to Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and pointed to his strategy and pitstop. Unjustified, according to Toto Wolff.

Bottas collides with Mercedes

Bottas started third at the Bahrain GP and after overtaking Charles Leclerc again, he stayed neatly behind the leading duo. Hamilton however was given the strategy to attack Verstappen, where Bottas was mainly used as second fiddle. This to the dissatisfaction of Bottas.

The Finn was not happy with the chosen strategy and had hoped to go on the attack. After the race, Bottas seemed to have a heated discussion with his team boss, which raised questions about the internal situation at Mercedes. Wolff emphasises however that there was no other choice for Mercedes.

Best strategy

''In my opinion, there was no other strategy possible. We tried to do the undercut with Valtteri, that would have changed his race. The lost position at the start created a negative outcome and he could not make up the gap to the two men in front. With the pit stop we wanted to catch Max and then it could have been successful, but we had a problem with the wheelgun on the right front,'' Wolff said according to Motorsport.com.

''When you only have limited info, I do understand being frustrated. I understand his statement that we should have done things differently. I just don't know what strategy we could have taken differently. The one stop was clearly not possible, the medium didn't make it to the end of the race. The hard tyre wasn't an option either, it wasn't fast enough. Then I come to the conclusion that we had no other option'', concludes the Mercedes team boss.