Bottas battles back in Baku to clinch second place

It was a roller coaster ride for Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas in Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

"My main goal today was to fight for the win," he said. "But that went out of the window after the first lap."

Starting on the front in Baku, Bottas immediately came under attack from Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen going into turn 1, which ended in contact. Bottas suffered a puncture and front wing damage that sent him limping back to pit lane.

"Going into turn 2, I was on the inside, he was on the outside," Bottas explained. "There was no space for me to go apart from over the kerb.

"When you go over the kerb the car obviously jumps and just couldn't keep the line," he explained. "I had a puncture on the first lap after the contact with Kimi,

"I think it was a racing incident, to be honest. But unlucky it was me and Kimi again."

By the time he came back out on track, he was a lap down. Fortunately a safety car period allowed him to unlap himself, and then he could start to claw back lost positions.

Wild race in Baku hands victory to Daniel Ricciardo

"It's just a crazy race, what was happening.

"I was actually last at one point," he pointed out. "But I got my head down, gave it absolutely everything, tried to get the absolute maximum out of every single corner.

"I was a lap down, then had to overtake the field under the safety car," he said. "I had to overtake everyone and catch them again.

"The second safety car after that really helped me out. Step by step, I moved forward from there.

"[After that I] just kept my head down, kept pushing. The team also managed to, during the red flag, fix the car a little bit. A really good job doing that.

"This just shows: never give up. You never know what's going to happen in the race."

As other drivers encountered problems, Bottas found himself getting closer and closer to the front. At the start of the final lap he was in the top three but seemingly without enough time to dispatch Lance Stroll for second.

A mighty final effort saw Bottas overhaul the Williams in the final seconds to cement a mighty comeback drive in the face of what had earlier seemed like a disaster.

"It's a shame Daniel in the end was too far away," he said. "But taking the circumstances what happened in the beginning, it was a good result for us."

"I really enjoyed it," he added.

"We didn't quite manage to win but P2 from where we were is a great feeling. Importantly for the team, we scored more points in the fight with Ferrari. And I got some good points for myself as well."

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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.