Valtteri Bottas had issues in right-hand corners as Toto Wolff says team is analysing the trouble as a F1 fan correctly predicted the Top 3.
One of the biggest falls in F1 Italian GP at Monza was from Mercedes’ Bottas, who dropped to sixth at the start, where he suspected a puncture due to contact. It wasn’t the case to be but his problems persisted throughout the grand prix.
There was some cooling issues and post-race, he revealed that he had problems turning the car right, which is why he thought he had a puncture initially. Even with the red flag and some minor adjustments, it wasn’t enough to gain places.
With Lewis Hamilton having to fight back through the field, Bottas couldn’t utilise the Brit’s day to his advantage with the Finn only managing a fifth place finish. “The start was pretty bad, I am not sure yet what happened and Lap 1,” he said.
“There was some contact and I actually thought I had a puncture. It wasn’t the case, it was more car cooling after Turn 6-7, but we recovered [somewhat]. I don’t know if it was contact or something else. With the engine, the water temperature was running high.
“So, I had to lift and coast and I had to pull off on the straights which was mostly managing. It is limited what we can change under red flag but it was bit better for us with the temperature towards the end, still in the corners, I couldn’t follow any other car,” summed up Bottas.
His problems was acknowledged by team boss Wolff, who said, a detailed analysis is ongoing to ascertain the issues. “I think first before being disappointed we need to try and find out what happened to the car,” he said. “The car didn’t turn well into the right-hand corners.
“Valtteri actually thought that he had a puncture, but we couldn’t see anything on the data, and that’s why we kept him out. In all those right-hand corners, you could see that he was losing a few car lengths to the car before.
“If that happens through Ascari and through Parabolica, even with DRS, you can’t overtake. We need to properly analyse what happened to the car. I’m of the conviction that a driver wouldn’t speak of a puncture right after the start if there wasn’t anything.
“As for engine mode affecting his fight back, I think Bottas was frustrated because we were too marginal on cooling, so it wasn’t a criticism of the power unit. It was more that we should have opened the car more, and that would have given him the possibility of not needing to lift and coast and create a gap to the guy in front.
“That was the frustrating situation that he said I can’t race. In terms of power units, we always said that, you create one power mode for the whole race means that you haven’t got the extra spice to overtake, you haven’t got the extra modes that you may decide or not to deploy in the race to overtake.
“That is valid for all the small teams as for the big teams. I think that the race today is a consequence of that decision,” summed up Wolff. In fact, among the Top 2 teams, only Hamilton looked to have pace while Bottas and the two Red Bull Racing drivers struggled.
Fan predicting podium right:
While the likes of Hamilton or Bottas and Max Verstappen couldn’t get the win, which shook the betting market as no one expected a win for Pierre Gasly and certainly not to have him with Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll on the podium at Monza.
It was the first F1 podium of the hybrid era where none from Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull featured. That stat is alone to showcase how difficult it is to get any prediction right but one managed to do so as has surfaced from Finland.
As per Iltalehti, one fan had Gasly, Sainz and Stroll as his podium finishers at Monza – unsure if in the order they finished. The odds were a massive 166,990 to one as the Tampere-based person won 33,398 euros against his 20 cents.
“This is absolutely exceptional,” said Miika Nurmi, Product Groupe Manager of Veikkaus betting site. “This is Supertripla’s highest payout ratio in the last ten years. Thus, a historically high multiplier and victory took place here.”
The last time when someone got it right in such a massive difference was during the 2017 Azerbaijan GP where Daniel Ricciardo won over Bottas and Stroll. Then, it were three who got it right with 63,466.60 divided among them equally.
Here’s the original story: https://www.iltalehti.fi/vedonlyontiravit/a/5e433187-2876-488f-a024-cfb9dafecca0
Here’s how F1 reacted to brand new Top 3
Here’s how F1 Italian GP panned out
Here’s Ross Brawn on reverse grid
Here’s what happened with Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton
