Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas believes that it was Max Verstappen’s over commitment that caused the puncture to the Red Bull Racing car in F1 Mexico GP.
Red Bull’s Verstappen had a bad start to F1 Mexico GP as he went off track while trying to fight the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton for track position in Turn 1-2-3 sequence. It dropped him behind both the McLaren’s Lando Norris and Bottas.
In a hurry to make up places, on Lap 4, Verstappen made a move on Bottas in the stadium section, which was applauded by many but not for long. Replays showed that his surprise move to dive down the inside of the Finnish driver, ended up in a contact.
Verstappen’s right rear tyre suffered a clip from the front wing of Bottas’ car as he then picked up a slow puncture, which came off in Turn 1-2-3 sequence as he limped back into the pits. Bottas felt the puncture was the Dutch driver’s fault all the way.
“For me, just out of nowhere he appeared on the inside into Turn 13 and I couldn’t disappear from there,” started Bottas. “He just dived in and we touched. He got a puncture from that. I couldn’t really avoid him, so I think he earned his own puncture, definitely.
“I don’t know; every driver is obviously different. Some are more aggressive, and some are less. I haven’t raced very closely for some time with all of them, so I can’t say in detail for all the drivers [to know if Verstappen is the most aggressive driver].”
Teammate Lewis Hamilton had his own clash with Verstappen at the start of the race and the British driver added how he has to be smart when racing against him. “I think every driver is slightly different,” said Hamilton.
“Some are smarter; some are like very smart, aggressive and some are silly with it. And so, through those experiences of racing with people, you give some more space and others you don’t have to. They’re quite respectful.
“But it’s very likely you’re going to come together with Max if you don’t give him extra space, so most of the time you do. But as I said, in my experience, I didn’t have a lot of space to give him extra space. But I don’t think it was intentional or anything like that.
“It was just… he’s a magnet for those kinds of things, but nonetheless, I managed to keep the car together and in a straight line, fortunately.” From Verstappen’s side, it was worth the try against Bottas as he pushed on to recover places.
“Despite the early laps issues, the race was still on as I overtook Valtteri, I think he clipped with his front wing my rear tyre, so not so lovely,” he said. “I went on the inside and suddenly felt a touch. It wasn’t an ideal one stop as in the end I was just hanging on.”
Here’s how the F1 Mexico GP panned out
Here’s what Lewis Hamilton said about Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen
Sergio Perez chuffed with his finish as Daniel Ricciardo disappointed
Charles Leclerc will learn to be more decisive like Sebastian Vettel in races
The story was written by Venkatesh P Koushik and edited by Darshan Chokhani
