Bottas disappointed with P4

Toto Wolff praises Valtteri Bottas, following his performance at Silverstone on Sunday where the Mercedes driver defended bravely.

With the much-debated Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen incident, Bottas capitalised on this to get himself up to second on the grid.

Bottas didn't attempt much of a push in the opening twenty laps, looking as if he had been told to reserve his tyres.

With Vettel pitting first, it meant Bottas lost a tiny bit of ground - Bottas was then closing in when the Safety Car was out for Marcus Ericsson's crash.

Ferrari and Red Bull took advantage of this and came in for new tyres without losing any time at all - however, they conceded position to Bottas.

Bottas then led with ten laps remaining, but the question was whether his tyres would get him over the line.

Vettel was mounting pressure on the Mercedes driver with his fresh Softs.

Despite his brave efforts, Bottas eventually was overtaken by Vettel and later on by team mate Lewis Hamilton and even Kimi Raikkonen.

"We gave it everything to try and claim the win - and he arguably would have done so without the first Safety Car period, as he was closing fast on Sebastian at that point," Wolff said.

Bottas had his say on Mercedes' strategy and his own performance:

"Leading the race and then dropping to fourth in the last few laps feels pretty bad," Bottas said.

"The others pitted under the Safety Car, but we took the risk and stayed out to get ahead of Sebastian.

"It worked out initially, everything felt fine in the beginning.

"I was giving everything I could in the re-starts, I had to push like in qualifying.

"But without about five laps to go, the tyres just couldn't take it anymore."