© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Valtteri Bottas admits he missed out on a huge opportunity to close up the championship gap between him and Lewis Hamilton at the Italian Grand Prix.
The Finn sits 47 points behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the championship standings, but he gap could have been considerably smaller had Bottas managed to win the race.
After Hamilton received a 10 second stop-and-go penalty that relegated him to the back of the grid, the Finn had a perfect opportunity to close the championship gap, but he ultimately finished in P5, while the Briton fought his way back to P7.
“It could have been a much worse day,” said Bottas.
“If I were now, before the weekend, in the championship lead, I would have been more satisfied with this, because I would been gaining on the main competitors.
“But I’m chasing and I need to make bigger gains if I still want to keep the title hopes there. I feel it was a missed opportunity as it could have been better and a win.”
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Although Bottas started the race from P2, he quickly fell back to P6 and had trouble overtaking throughout the entire race. The Finn believes the reason for this might be the multiple engine modes ban instituted from the Italian Grand Prix onward.
“I think that’s its partially due to the regulations that you’re running in constant mode, in terms of defending and attacking, so maybe there’s less overtaking because of that,” he said.
“Even in Monza the DRS effect is quite small, because the wing is smaller too and you have less drag, anyway.
“For me the main issue was trying to get close enough to the other cars to overtake and get a massive tow.
“But it was pretty much impossible to overtake any car that I was following.”
