Bottas: 'No better way to start the season'

“There was clearly a lot of pressure, one safety car was fine, but another…” Valtteri Bottas summed up in a few words one of the parameters of the outcome of the race this Sunday in Austria: the interventions of the safety car.

Firmly installed at the head of the event from the start, taken from pole position, the Finn from Mercedes was able to contain the desires of his teammate Lewis Hamilton during the three consecutive restarts following the Safety Car's track entries after the different avatars encountered by Kevin Magnussen (Haas), George Russell (Williams) and Kimi Räikkönen (Alfa Romeo).

Perfectly resisting the pressure from the world champion, Bottas then took advantage of the penalty imposed on Hamilton for contact with Alex Albon (Red Bull), to definitively ensure his success, the Thai from the Austrian team, who could have posed a serious threat in the final laps with his softer tires.

Another parameter to integrate for Bottas, the management of a somewhat suffering mechanics, with problems with gearbox sensors. « There's no better way to start the season, admits the winner of the day.

Today was not easy. In the first stint, Lewis lost time by having to come back, especially against the Red Bulls, so it wasn't too bad and I was able to make a gap.

We had to manage the car quite a bit. I couldn't use all the vibrators and at some points I was a little worried, but I'm glad we both managed to finish. »

Discover the full report and analysis of the Austrian Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondent in Spielberg, in issue 2268 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version and this Wednesday on newsstands.