Doornbos hard on Bottas: "He threw his championship away again"

F1 News

17 August 2020 at 18:09
Last update 17 August 2020 at 23:51
  • GPblog.com

Already a few times we've heard that Valtteri Bottas is more ready than ever: fighting for the championship. The gap between him and his teammate Lewis Hamilton has widened considerably and even Max Verstappen in the lesser Red Bull is between the two Mercedes drivers. To narrow the gap to Hamilton, Bottas should have won last weekend or at least finished second, but at the start the Finn already let it go.

He's not aggressive enough

In Crashen in de Keuken Robert Doornbos and Rob Kamphues look back on last weekend's Grand Prix. At the start Bottas should have dived into the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen, but he left room. "He wasn't aggressive enough here," said Doornbos. "Close that gap to Max, get that slipstream to Lewis and you'll have an opportunity to catch up.

"Now he's just letting Max run free and that's in line [with Hamilton]." 

Kamphues added that Bottas knew this was his last chance at the title. "Here [the gap between Verstappen and Hamilton] you just have to put him in front of it," continued Doornbos. "It's almost a kilometre to turn one."

"He should have just cut Max off and then grabbed the slipstream from Lewis and tried to slow him down." In other words, Bottas' approach was simply too soft, because shortly after that he was also passed by Lance Stroll and in the second corner Sergio Perez was alongside him.

"Here he also throws away his championship again, he didn't have a chance," concluded Doornbos.