Bottas: I’ve had my share of bad luck for 2018 

Valtteri Bottas hopes his run of bad luck in the 2018 Formula 1 season has come to an end as he targets a turnaround in fortunes at the Canadian Grand Prix. 

The Mercedes driver has enjoyed a strong start to the campaign and at times out-performed teammate Lewis Hamilton during the opening six rounds, though he has endured a number of unfortunate circumstances that have hampered his results. 

Bottas was narrowly beaten to victory by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain, before he looked set to win in China until a late Safety Car changed the complexion of the race and enabled Red Bull to take advantage. 

He looked set to claim a win that would have propelled him to the top of the drivers’ standings in Baku - a race eventual victor Hamilton admitted Bottas had deserved to win - until a puncture with three laps to go ended his race in dramatic fashion. Speaking in Thursday’s pre-race drivers’ press conference in Montreal, Bottas insisted he does not allow himself to dwell on what could have been. 

“I don’t want to think about too far behind [me],” Bottas said. “Those are the points we have now and we have to deal with it as a team. I mainly looking ahead, and it’s still very early in the season and anything can happen. 

“I hope I’ve had my run of back luck for the whole here and things will go smoothly from now on. But there’s no point to think about the past, I just want to keep on going, I want to win races and I’m sure it will come.”

Mercedes has been dealt a blow heading into the Canadian Grand Prix weekend after it was forced to delay its planned introduction of an engine upgrade until the French Grand Prix after a late “quality issue” was discovered. 

While Hamilton and Bottas believe loss of extra performance could be “magnified” in Canada, the Finn remains confident about the German manufacturer’s chances following a tricky weekend last time out in Monaco. 

“Monaco was definitively tough as I would always knew it could be a very strong circuit for Ferrari and Red Bull,” he explained. “I think it was damage limitation and we were more or less matching the performance we anticipated or we were just slightly bellow it. 

“It definitively highlighted all the weaknesses we have in the car but the car was not designed for Monaco, it was designed to be quick in most of the circuits, including this one. 

"If the trend stays the same as last year where we were weak in Monaco and strong here, it will be good for us and I hope so, we can have a good weekend here.”