Bottas hoping for varied Mercedes strategy in F1 British GP

Valtteri Bottas is hopeful he is allowed to run an alternative strategy in a bid to beat team-mate Lewis Hamilton in Sunday's Formula 1 British Grand Prix. 

Mercedes was the class of the field in qualifying at Silverstone as it stormed to a record 66th front-row lockout.

Bottas looked to be the man to beat going into Q3 after Hamilton trailed the Finn in Q2, following his spin at Luffield.

Hamilton ultimately came out on top, taking pole position at Silverstone by 0.3s.

Typically, Mercedes ensures its drivers have parity when it comes to strategy but Bottas is hopeful there is some strategic variation - as there was in the 2019 race where he did two stops; Hamilton doing just the one - in Sunday's race.

"For sure I’ll try everything because it’s still very close between us in the championship points” Bottas said. "Of course, I’ll do everything I can and we’ll work overnight to see what we can do and if there’s anything different I can do.  

"Yes, we have a certain philosophy and usually the car ahead can kind of choose the strategy, has a bit of a priority and that’s fair enough – that’s how it goes. But you never know, it can be a pretty different race, like mine and Lewis’ last year, so, we’ll see.”

Bottas was happy with the handling of his Mercedes in qualifying but felt the balance was getting away from him as the track temperature increased.

"It was pretty much a smooth session otherwise, I had just clean sessions and could build on it lap by lap, as the car was feeling pretty good. The balance of the car was, throughout qualifying switching more towards oversteer – I don’t know if was because the temperatures were getting higher.

"Just that in both runs in Q3 I really struggled to attack in the slow corners as I had done before and the same in Turns 12 and 13, I was starting to struggle with the rear end it was quite snappy.”