Valtteri Bottas finished eighth in the Australian Grand Prix, his second top-10 finish following points from Bahrain and retirement from Jeddah. The Alfa Romeo F1 driver had an attacking race and is pleased with a good strategy, even if the timing of the neutralizations did not play in his favour.
“From start to finish, I pushed hard, I fought well” Bottas said. “I lost one or two places at the start but I managed to recover them. Overall it was a good race, with a good strategy, even if I had a little bad luck with the safety car.
His race was marked by an intense battle with Lance Stroll, who had tires in poorer condition. The Aston Martin F1 driver used all the stratagems allowed – or not – to defend himself. Bottas isn’t happy with his rival’s rather dirty defense.
“The zigzags made it difficult to pass him, I had nowhere to go and it was borderline. And he forced me to go off track when I tried to pass him so I don’t think not that that’s how we should fight.”
“But I managed to overtake him, even if he still cost me time, otherwise Esteban [Ocon] was reachable. But I still scored some points, so that’s a good thing.”
Alfa Romeo F1 had decided to sacrifice qualifying to make better use of its car and its tires in the race, and Bottas welcomes this choice: “I’m happy with the decisions made and the way we raced. The thinner wing penalized us yesterday but proved to be the right choice to progress.”
