Valtteri Bottas admits of slight concerns with regards to Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton changing his strategy in F1 Japanese GP.
What looked like a one-stop F1 Japanese GP at Suzuka turned out to be a two-stopper for most with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel playing the card first after losing out from pole. He did a soft-soft medium as opposed to soft-medium-soft by Mercedes.
But a clever run and timely thought out strategy from Ferrari saw him hang on to second from a charging Hamilton. Once the threat from Ferrari was put away, it became a Mercedes fight with Bottas wanting to take it all cost from Hamilton.
Bottas already committed himself to a two-stopper but Hamilton did not stop straightaway. It ringed some bells on the Finn’s mind as he felt, Hamilton would try to make one-stop stick. He wanted to at one point as well but then agreed with his team in the end.
Once Hamilton pitted, it was a sigh of relief for Bottas, who took his first win since the 2019 Azerbaijan GP. Mathematically, he is the sole driver who can challenge Hamilton for the title but is 64 points behind with only four races to go.
“When Lewis didn’t stop for his second stop I was slightly concerned that maybe his tyres would last to the end and he could actually make it, because he had a decent gap to me,” said Bottas to the media after his victory.
“But obviously he was on the medium and I think that tyres would have struggled massively at the end. For sure I was wanting to make sure what’s the race situation and what’s going to happen. At that point actually I had some margin to save the engine a little bit for the future races.
“So that’s why I was asking if I really needed to go full gas, or if there’s a bit of margin for safety. I think the timing for the good lap times, I was getting through some backmarkers then getting into the rhythm again, getting into good lap times.
“All my stints, they were not massively long so I could really push hard when I wanted. And like I said earlier, the car felt really good today, so I was very comfortable to push when needed. So, from my side, obviously a very good race and on top of that very, very happy for every single team member, getting the sixth constructors’ title.”
At the same time, Hamilton did raise the strategy question but he wasn’t hugely surprised in the end as he also felt the degradation was a bit on the higher side. Eventually, he listened to his team to secure the sixth constructors’ title, which they did with Bottas’ win.
Here’s how the F1 Japanese GP panned out
Sebastian Vettel on his mistake and FIA’s clarification