Bottas: Mercedes needs to accept Red Bull is faster after Styrian GP F1 defeat

Bottas returned to the podium for the first time since the Spanish Grand Prix as he held off a fast-charging Sergio Perez in the closing laps.

Starting from fifth after his three-place grid penalty, Bottas got past Lando Norris on track before benefiting from a rare Red Bull pit stop error to get ahead of Perez through the pit stop phase.

Red Bull converted Perez to a two-stop strategy in a bid to get past Bottas on track but it wasn’t enough as the Mexican ran out of laps, finishing just over 0.5s behind at the chequered flag.

Assessing Mercedes’ performance at the Red Bull Ring, Bottas believes it had a 0.3s advantage this weekend in race trim.

“They seem quick, I feel like it’s up to three tenths of a second they’re actually quicker than us and that’s actually quite a lot, so we have a lot of work to do if we want to make our car faster than theirs,” Bottas said. “At least today we managed to beat one of them, which is something, I think we were quite reactive today getting ahead, when they made a mistake on the pit stop. That’s good, but we need to do better next weekend.

“It’s hard to think at this moment how it’s going to go. Red Bull has been so quick everywhere and they have a strong package. I think we need to accept they are ahead, as use that as a motivation, as a team.”

Bottas struggled with his tyres at the end of race, describing the final few laps like “rallying in the Finnish Lapland”.

Reflecting on his battle with Perez, he explained: “My tyres were finished. We had a one stop race and I think that with the hard tyre our drop off was a bit more than what we expected, again. 

“There were many cars fighting in front, like in a DRS train, and it was so hard to get close. I was trying everything I could but it was quite slow progress getting through them. But I’m just happy we managed to keep ahead of Perez.”

Like Mercedes teammate Hamilton, the Finn feels Red Bull’s advantage mainly comes on the straights. 

“I think today it was really clear that, at least today, on this track, Red Bull is faster,” Bottas added. “Also, Checo was putting a lot of pressure on me, so if we want to keep up with them we cannot do as much tyre management. I definitely can feel they’re faster on the straights, I think they have a more efficient package, overall, so, yes, we have work to do.”