© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Valtteri Bottas explains why he only qualified in P8 at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, while his team-mate Lewis Hamilton qualified on pole.
Valtteri Bottas had a very difficult time at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The Finn qualified in P8 and was running in P9 during the race, before a collision with George Russell put him out of the race.
On the other hand his team-mate Lewis Hamilton put his car on pole and later fought for the win. Mercedes has traditionally had problems on hotter tracks, but now at the much cooler Imola circuit Bottas says he struggled with tyre warm-up.
“I think it is a bit overall a thing with our car,” the Finn explained.
“Over the years we quite often struggled in hot conditions and cold has been normally good.
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“So we are really trying to develop the car that we don’t overheat the tyres, but that becomes overall a negative that if we need to get temperature quickly into the tyres, some other cars can do it better than us.”
Bottas confirms his tyre wam-up was slower than Lewis Hamilton’s.
“For me, personally compared to Lewis, it was slower than average. Sometimes you get it to work like, for me in Q1, when I did a much faster time than in Q3.
“I got them to work but for some reason, I just couldn’t get them to work in the same way in Q3. It’s all about one or two degrees surface or core tyre temperature.
“It’s hard to explain,” concluded the Finn.
