Bottas hurt by Merc cooling miscalculation

Valtteri Bottas reckons he could have secured a better result in the Australian Grand Prix had it not been for a cooling miscalculation on his Mercedes Formula 1 car. 

Bottas started Melbourne’s season-opener from 15th on the grid after being forced to change his gearbox following his heavy qualifying crash in qualifying. 

While Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton looked to have the strongest race pace throughout, Bottas struggled to make up ground and crossed the line in a low-key eighth. 

The Finn revealed after the race he had to repeatedly back off in order to preserve his engine having encountered overheating issues on his W09, suggesting Mercedes had got its cooling estimations wrong.

"We expected it was going to be difficult, and we knew that you need a big pace difference delta to overtake if the other guy doesn't do any mistake, and especially if there's a train of cars like I had in the whole second stint," Bottas said. 

"There was not a lot of things happening that were really helping me. I think with the VSC maybe I gained a little bit, stopping under that, but other than that it was a pretty frustrating race in the end because we do have a good car but there was nothing I could do. On top of that what was really limiting us today was overheating.

"I think there was something wrong with the calculation for the cooling we estimated for today so I couldn't really be close to other cars and couldn't put pressure on other cars for long. I could only do about two laps and then I had to back off and try again.”

Hamilton also recieved instructions throughout the race to cool his power unit. 

Bottas, who finished directly behind four Renault-powered cars and struggled to pass Nico Hulkenberg, believes Mercedes no longer boasts a clear engine performance advantage over its rivals. 

"The engine difference is not massive anymore. We still have a bit of an advantage over Renault, but it's not massive and those cars are not too bad in the corners. I couldn't get any closer really. All the teams are closer so that makes it difficult."