Bottas ignoring “big gap” to Hamilton in F1 title race

Valtteri Bottas says he isn’t paying attention to the “much bigger than I would like” gap in the Formula 1 world championship standings to Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton after losing further ground at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton leads Bottas by 62 points going into the F1 summer break after enduring a frustrating Hungarian round finishing down in eighth place due to early damage suffered in opening lap collisions.

With Hamilton going on to win at the Hungaroring, the F1 points deficit has now swelled to the largest it has been all season, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has moved to just seven points behind Bottas in third place, but the Finn says he isn’t focusing on the points gaps with nine races to go in 2019.

“It is a big gap, much bigger than I would like to have but that is the gap now. There is not much else I can do and I don’t really want to think about it too much at the moment,” Bottas said.

“We will still go through everything about this race [in Hungary] with the team and then move on with many races to go but obviously it is a bit of a tricky situation.”

Bottas’s future at Mercedes remains in the balance, as he appears in a fight against Esteban Ocon for the race seat next to Hamilton in 2020, and the Finnish driver concedes being under pressure over his F1 contract situation is not helping his situation.

“That is the thing in this sport, balancing the risks just enough and pushing hard to try to take the opportunities but still not fuck up,” he said. “When, contract-wise, you are on the limit it never helps.

“Some people might think that some drivers perform better under pressure when things are on the limit but for me it does not help.

“I can’t say going into Turn 1 I was thinking about it. But I was very hungry for the win even if there was contract talks or not, I wanted to win this race and I wanted to take the risk but it didn’t go as planned.

“It could have been a lot different, we are talking about centimetres here and there.”