Valtteri Bottas was left completed gutted after a piece of debris which punctured his right rear tyre ruined a potential race win in the final laps of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Mercedes was trying an alternate strategy with the Finn in order to try and put Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari under pressure for the race victory.
Once the Red Bull drivers collided and brought out the safety car, Bottas came into the pits for a set of Ultrasoft tyres and managed to maintain the race lead over the German, as the remainder of the field also took on fresh rubber.
At the restart, Vettel tried to dive up the inside of Bottas and locked up, leaving the Finn to potentially score a fourth career win.
However, with just three laps remaining Bottas ran over a sizeable piece of debris that caused a puncture, putting him out of the race.
"It’s just unfortunate and unlucky," Bottas said. "I think this track is difficult, street circuits in general with a lot of crashes will always be an issue, this time it was so unlucky.
"I had no idea at any point that I ran over any debris, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t feel anything, so I was just very, very unlucky.
It felt like a good race to then, safety car restart everything was under control. I could pull a bit of a gap, then this happened – I just had no idea that I run over some debris, can’t say much more."
Despite nearly come close to another race victory after narrowly missing out on victory in China to Daniel Ricciardo, Bottas has still tried to look on the positive side of events after team-mate Lewis Hamilton claimed the race win in Baku.
"It felt like the last couple of races have been quite close that Mercedes are winning," he added. "The good thing for us as a team Lewis won, good points, but for myself, yeah… try again in two weeks."
When asked about how he may get over the day's events, he responded by saying: "Maybe 10 pints of beer and we will be fine! I will get through it – of course you always need to get through difficulties, it is part of racing although at the moment it is very painful."
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