Mercedes ‘sleeping’ with strategy, claims Bottas

Valtteri Bottas says Mercedes was “sleeping” on race strategy at certain stages of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone, as he slipped from pole to third.

Pirelli, Formula 1’s sole tyre supplier brought softer compounds to the second race at Silverstone compared to last weekend’s British Grand Prix.

Bottas made a clear getaway from the grid to lead in the early stages, but Red Bull’s Max Verstappen remained a threat having started on the white-marked Hard tyres.

Both Mercedes cars clearly suffered from heavy blistering on both the Hard and Medium compounds of tyre and appeared to not have an answer for the pace of Verstappen.

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Bottas remained ahead of Hamilton early on but the Briton’s later second stop gave him a tyre advantage late on and in the final stages he moved clear, relegating Bottas to third.

“Obviously, starting from pole and finishing third, it’s not ideal,” said the Finn.

“As a team we were sleeping at some point, when Max got ahead of us and my strategy was far, far from ideal, so we have a lot to learn from today.

“Of, course I was trying, if there was a chance, to keep up with Max, but as soon as I started to push, towards the end, the tyres just fell apart.

“There was a lot of blistering on the tyres for us today and it seems like Red Bull had none, so they clearly have an edge over there.”

Bottas also went into detail over how difficult the tyres felt to drive over the course of the race.

“The tyre just overheats, it’s basically boiling, you get the holes in the tyres and you just lose grip,” he added.

“Once you start having blisters in one particular tyre you just lose cornering grip and you just go slower.”