Perplexed Valtteri Bottas ‘couldn’t go any quicker’ in practice

Valtteri Bottas was at a loss to explain his performance deficit to Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton during practice in Singapore.

Bottas, who crashed through Turn 19 in the first session, could muster only fourth place in the second practice session, with his best effort over a second down on Hamilton.

Bottas has an indifferent record around the streets of Marina Bay, having been out-qualified by Hamilton by half a second in both 2017 and 2018, taking a best race result of third.

“It was a tricky one, had a bit of an off moment in FP1 which ended my running a bit early, but I really was feeling OK until then,” said Bottas.

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“I just lost the back end in one of the corners, and obviously here with no run-offs, you pay the price. It can happen I guess.

“In P2, not sure really what was going on, was lacking pace every single run, every tyre compound, so I’m not quite sure if everything was right in the car. We need to have a look.

“It felt like I couldn’t go any quicker, but I was one second off the pace. A bit tricky.”

Bottas is nonetheless expecting a close battle between Formula 1’s leading three teams at the venue.

“For sure you need to push always, and the biggest push in Q3, obviously try and minimise the damage in practice,” he said.

“I think it’s going to be close between the three teams, but Lewis was definitely on form today.”