Valtteri Bottas has emphasised that Mercedes has no plans to provide preferential treatment to either driver, despite the Finn twice being instructed to allow Lewis Hamilton through in Bahrain.
Bottas led away from his maiden pole position in Bahrain but struggled in the first stint amid incorrectly high tyre pressures, before being overhauled by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
Bottas’ lack of pace, allied to Hamilton’s divergent strategy, meant he twice gave way to allow the Briton through, though Vettel had a sufficient advantage up front to record victory.
When asked whether Mercedes could introduce preferential treatment for either driver, Bottas dismissed the notion, but pointed to the resurgence of Ferrari as reason for being more tactically astute.
“We have not had the conversation because I don’t think there’s any need to,” said Bottas, 23 points behind Hamilton.
“This team has never really had number 1 or 2 drivers and is not planning to, it’s always trying to give equal chance to both drivers.
“What is different this year is that for the team [for] the last three years the gap to the second quickest team has been bigger.
“So maybe every single detail, [such as] letting the drivers race hard or one being stuck behind the other at times, hasn’t cost anything.
“I do understand that this year it can cost points if for any reason, like for me in Bahrain, [running slowly then] the pace of the other car is not good, then the team needs to be clever not to lose points.
“But we’ve only had three races this year and I feel all my good results are still on the way so at least I’m not thinking about anything like that and I’m sure the team also [feels there] is no need to.”
Bottas is also hopeful that cooler ambient temperatures in Russia this weekend – forecast to be around 20°c – will benefit Mercedes.
“I think we’ve this year struggled a bit more with higher temperatures,” he said.
“It has been a bit of a trend and something we’ve been working hard [on]; I think we found some things during testing in Bahrain.
“I think we prefer these kinds of conditions to very hot [weather], but it’s not something we are counting on, we need to keep working on everything but it will be interesting to compare.
“My estimate is it’ll be very close with Ferrari, we’re talking hundredths, maximum tenths, so it’s going to be interesting.”
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