Bottas expected "difficult afternoon" in Austin

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas has admitted that he expected a "difficult" afternoon at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday.

Bottas started the race in P3, with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton on pole, but both drivers finished lower than the position they started in P5 and P3, respectively.

Valtteri's Finnish compatriot Kimi Raikkonen won the race and Bottas expected Ferrari to come out strong in the United States.

"We knew going into the race that it was going to be a very difficult afternoon," Bottas admitted to The Checkered Flag. "The Ferrari looked very quick yesterday and there were a lot of question marks because of the limited running in the dry, so making predictions on the set-up and the tyres was very tricky."

Mercedes tried a different strategy to Scuderia - with only pitting once; but Bottas has admitted that it didn't work as well as they'd hoped, but he's still unsure why that is.

"We didn't quite have the pace that we were hoping for, especially on the Soft tyres," Bottas explained. "We had planned for a one-stop race and that's what we did, but in hindsight, the second stint was just a bit too long.

"My tyres started to go three or four laps before Sebastian (Vettel) overtook me and they were just completely gone in the end, that's why he managed to build such a big gap in only a few laps."