French Grand Prix – Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praised Valtteri Bottas’ recovery drive following the Finn’s opening lap collision at the Circuit Paul Ricard.
Bottas’ race was compromised when he was hit by Sebastian Vettel at the first corner of the race.
The Ferrari driver locked up under braking for turn one and understeered into the path of Bottas. Vettel broke his front wing, and Bottas had a left-rear puncture along with floor damage.
The incident prompted a safety car, and the pair fought through the field to claim points, although this was made harder for Bottas due to his floor damage.
Bottas’ progress was further hampered by a delay in attaching one of his wheels at his second pit stop, meaning he finished just short of a place in the top six, falling behind Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.
“Sebastian clearly misjudged his braking for Turn One and made a mistake, which cost both him and Valtteri dearly.
“When the car stopped, we saw that the floor area around the tyre was pretty badly damaged and flapping about – and Valtteri described the car balance as “shocking”.
“Taking that into account, it was a battling performance from him, too. Overall, though, we leave seeing the positive side of our performance this weekend.
Following their below-par performance in Montreal two weeks’ ago, Wolff added that he was pleased with Mercedes’ upgrades brought for the French Grand Prix weekend.
“The car was quick and with our upgrades, it felt like we made a step forward; thank you to everybody in the team who worked so hard to bring them to the track this weekend.
“But we can’t afford to make any assumptions about what this means for the next races – it’s still a three-way fight and we will need to be at our very best if we wish to repeat this performance.”
