F1 News
Bottas holds his hands up: "I made a mistake myself"
Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
After crashing out of the German Grand Prix in the latter stages, Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas has admitted the DNF was a mistake on his behalf, as the Finn lost control at turn 1 in the final stages of the race.
Bottas was pushing hard to salvage a podium place as he was hunting down the midfield duo of Daniil Kvyat and Lance Stroll in P2 and P3 respectively. He had a look at Stroll but couldn't get past.
Then, it all went wrong for Bottas, as he lost his tail at turn 1, just like teammate Lewis Hamilton had done a few laps before. However, unlike Hamilton, Bottas hit a slippery bit of asphalt, which kept him from slowing down. He slammed into the barrier, making it two crashes in three race weekends after his crash in Austria.
After the race, the 29-year-old held his hands up when asked what happened during the crash.
“I made a mistake myself, for sure the team also told me to push harder and I was pushing as hard as I could to get to the podium,” he told journalists, including Crash.net.
“Obviously I pushed a bit too much in that corner, lost the rear-end. It was my mistake and maybe I should have tried to stay more calm and take my time but maybe if I didn’t try that hard maybe I wouldn’t have reached the podium.
“Obviously I should have done the race without mistakes, that’s always the goal but it happened at the wrong time, and the wrong corner, and that’s it.”
