Bottas "not happy" with Mercedes' three-stop strategy in Mexico

12:33, 29 Oct 2018
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Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas has said he is not satisfied with his Mexican Grand Prix after pitting three times because his tyres "fell apart".
Bottas and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton suffered heavy tyre wear in Mexico and were forced into a multiple-stop strategy.
The Finnish driver's aim was a one-stop strategy after started on the Ultrasofts, but it wasn't possible with the damage the tyres were receiving at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Bottas was eventually lapped by race winner Max Verstappen - emphasising the poor tyre wear that the Silver Arrows had.
"I'm really happy for Lewis, but we cannot be satisfied with today's race, it was very difficult," Bottas said. "The start of the race was actually pretty good, but then we started to struggle with the tyres. The tyre life on this track was really poor; I ended up doing three stops, which is two stops more than we predicted.
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"I tried to manage the tyres, I made sure not to slide, but they still just fell apart. I don't know yet why we struggled so much and on all three different compounds, so we will have to look into that and find out why we ran into these problems.
"I think most teams struggled a bit, but maybe not as much as we did, so we will have to investigate. Again, congrats to Lewis - now we need to make sure to keep pushing and claim the Constructors' Championship as well!"

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