Bottas should have finished second at German GP - Wolff

Toto Wolff believes Valtteri Bottas should have finished second at Formula 1’s German Grand Prix.

Bottas was battling Racing Point driver for the final spot on the podium in the closing conditions when he lost control of his Mercedes after hitting a damp patch at Turn 1 and crashed into the barriers.

The retirement meant Bottas missed a golden opportunity to claw some points back on teammate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton, who finished outside of the points after an uncharacteristic mistake-ridden race.

“I think in his championship battle he could have had a decent amount of points today to catch up to Lewis,” Wolff said.

“Whether it was 12, 15 or 18 points but I think it should have been 18 points and I think that would have been a jump but it did not happen.

“We are mid-term and there are plenty more points to score but he had a good chance today to recover.

“I think when you race in F1 you can feel the pain of days like this and beat yourself up a bit but you need to recover if you want to be a race winner and championship winner.

“You need to come back strong even from this very low and Valtteri has shown in the past that he has been able to do that.”

Bottas’ incident followed two separate incidents for Hamilton, with the Briton sliding off the track on slick tyres and hitting the wall at the penultimate corner, before later spinning at Turn 1.

Asked if Mercedes had warned its drivers about other drivers crashing in the conditions, Wolff replied: “I need to look at the radio calls again whether we warned them or not.

“It was a very knife edge call to pit for slicks, particularly as the last sector was very wet. In hindsight it was the wrong thing to do but we are always more intelligent after the race.

“I think they knew Leclerc was in the wall but I wouldn’t want to pin it to one decision or incident there were a multitude of things that went wrong.”