Bottas has “no concerns” he went too far with Mercedes F1 radio criticism

Bottas was in the fight for the victory for much of the race, running right behind eventual Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton before Red Bull switched the Dutchman to a two-stop strategy.

As the Finn struggled for tyre wear in the closing phase of the race, he dropped behind Verstappen and then Sergio Perez.

Bottas criticised Mercedes over team radio during the race: "Why the f-ck does no one listen to me when I say it's going to be a two-stopper?!" F---ing hell."

Reflecting on his team radio message, Bottas has "no concerns" that he overstepped the mark.

“No concerns, I was making very clear what I was thinking,”  Bottas said. “I was suggesting a two-stop earlier in the race but the team decided it was going to be a one-stop. The team went one-stop and here we are."

Bottas described feeling like a “sitting duck" as he dropped outside of the podium places.

“Yeah, I think the winning strategy today was two stop,” Bottas added. “Easy to say afterwards, but that’s how it is. As a team we were too focused on just completing the one-stop thinking it’s the best, but it wasn’t. I had no front tyres left for the last 10, 15 laps so I was really trying to get the car home. It was not fun today, the last stint.

“You feel like a sitting duck! It’s quite simple. Of course, I tried everything I could, tried to finish on the podium but tyres were completely gone so no chance.”

Toto Wolff revealed after the race that Mercedes opted not to pit him for the fastest lap because Perez was under investigation for completing the move outside of the track and could have resulted in a five-second time penalty.

Wolff explained to Sky Sports F1: “Well, we thought maybe Perez gets a penalty for overtaking outside of the track limits so we said stay within 5 seconds, so it was really balancing between that penalty and taking fastest lap. We gambled, we lost.”