Bottas: My luck is a bad joke

Valtteri Bottas says he’s bemused by the poor fortune plaguing his 2018 Formula 1 campaign after suffering hydraulics failure with his Mercedes at the Austrian Grand Prix.

The Finnish driver stormed to a first pole position of the season at the Red Bull Ring and despite losing his lead to Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap he looked in a strong position midway through his opening stint.

But a sudden hydraulics issue saw him suffer a terminal gearbox issue and was forced out of the race to mark his second retirement of the season as he dropped to sixth in the F1 world drivers’ championship.

It marks yet another painful race for Bottas this year following a late race puncture while leading the Azerbaijan Grand Prix while he was also hit by Sebastian Vettel at the first turn of the French Grand Prix.

“The luck I'm having this year feels like a bit of a bad joke,” Bottas said. “My start was not ideal – I had quite a bit of wheel spin and there was less grip than we expected, so I dropped a few places.

“Going into turn 3 I could recover two places and was back in second place. After that the car felt strong, we were running well, but then I suddenly experienced a loss of hydraulic pressure. There was nothing I could have done to prevent the DNF.”

Bottas has called on his Mercedes team to resolve the issue in time for next week’s British Grand Prix, while teammate Hamilton also suffered a mechanical retirement caused by a fuel pressure problem, and is hopes his recent form turns around at Silverstone.

“We need to investigate and find the cause of the issues we had today, but I'm sure we will recover from this result,” he sad. “I guess it was just not meant to be today - but one day it will be.”