Bottas must ‘maximise’ every opportunity after F1 title blow

Valtteri Bottas says he will remain focused on extracting the maximum from his opportunities going forward after his 2020 F1 title hopes were dealt a literal blow by his late puncture at Silverstone.

The Finn was en route to second position in the British Grand Prix when he suffered the blow out with two laps remaining, dropping him out of the points.

Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, suffered his own puncture on the final lap but had time in hand to nurse his Mercedes W11 to the chequered flag before being caught by Max Verstappen.

Marking his third win in four races, Hamilton has now opened up a 30 point lead over Bottas but the Finn is refusing to dwell too hard on his misfortune, pointing out he wasn’t in a position to do anything differently.

“It’s not ideal but, for the moment, if everything goes to the plan with the calendar there are going to be more than ten races, but we just don’t know. The best bet would be to be on top of the points all the time, so it’s a big loss of points.

“This kind thing we can’t really afford but, obviously, Lewis had a good race, but he also got away, in a way. What can I do? What can I say? It’s not ideal, but I can’t change what has happened, just got to move on and take the learnings and try again next weekend.

“Keep positive, because if I would now start thinking now that it’s done, then it would be done. I’m just not going to do that, I’ll keep pushing, keep believing, because you never know.”

Regardless, the margin at this stage in the year means Bottas will need to begin making in-roads or face losing touch with his team-mate.

“I definitively need to maximise every opportunity and that’s going to be entirely up to me. Hopefully no other unlucky events, but I need to do it myself, I need to be on pole and win the races, that’s what it will take. I’m definitively going to take one race at a time and just think about that result, that weekend – that’s it.”