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Williams tyre error 'very disappointing' - Bottas

Valtteri Bottas says Williams' bizarre tyre error during the Belgian Grand Prix was "very disappointing" after struggling to ninth place.

Running in a pack of cars fighting for the top six, Bottas' first pit stop saw him attempt to take on a new set of soft tyres. However, a mistake by Williams saw his car fitted with three softs and a medium compound tyre on the right rear, resulting in a drive-through penalty.

While Bottas says the car's handling was not overly hurt but the error, he is unhappy at the disappointing mix-up.

“They told me the lap after my penalty when I asked what the problem was," Bottas told F1i. "I thought initially there was just a bit of a mistake with the tyre pressures because the corners to the left felt a bit different. It was still drivable, I mean I was not losing massive time because of that. Obviously a very disappointing mistake from us.”

And Bottas admits he was surprised by how far off the pace Williams was in race trim.

Asked if he expected to be more competitive, Bottas replied: “We did, definitely.

"We struggled today with the option tyre and the prime we thought was going to be the worst one but actually it was the better one for us. So we need to look in to that.

“I really hope we are stronger [in Monza] and I do expect us to be also.”

Click here for Sunday's gallery of the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.