Bottas: "The duel with Verstappen made my whole race more exciting"

The second weekend in Spielberg went as expected for Valtteri Bottas. The Mercedes driver finished in second place, behind teammate Lewis Hamilton. However, the Finn remains the leader of the world championship, as he won the first race of 2020 convincingly. Against Sky Sports F1, the Finn looks back at the Steiermark Grand Prix.

"It's the first 1-2 for the team this season, we were obviously really strong. For the rest, we mainly have to learn from this race and move on," Bottas explains in an interview with Sky Sports. The Finnish driver was in a duel with Max Verstappen for second place in the final phase of the race. Bottas clearly had a big advantage there and it didn't take long before he passed the Dutchman. Bottas had tyres which were 10 laps fresher than Verstappen. 

Exciting duel with Verstappen

The team originally indicated that Bottas would only get close to the Red Bull Racing driver in the last lap, but the Finn managed to accelerate, so he passed the Dutchman with a few laps left. "That battle made the race a lot more interesting for me and I had a clear target to chase."

“That helps tremendously in maintaining concentration and speed. I am glad I got him in the end. I had one go but didn't quite work, but at least the second time it went okay," Bottas concludes.