Bottas: "We lost it in the first corner"

Valteri Bottas was deeply disappointed to lose out to Sebastian Vettel in the first corner of the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Bottas had pipped the Ferrari to pole position by a narrow margin the previous day. But when the lights went out, the advantage went to Vettel - and it decided the race.

"Very disappointing, we lost it in the race start," said the Mercedes driver after the finish. "We started from the pole so of course the only goal for us was to win the race today.

"I didn't want to be sandwiched, obviously!" he quipped after ending the race in second place between Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.

"Just got some wheel spin," he explained. "There was a bit less grip than I expected. Initially when I dropped the clutch it just broke the traction and there was wheel spinning.

"Seb got a better getaway on the inside and he managed to get inside [into turn 1] and I think we lost the race in the first corner, which is unfortunate.

"I was trying to cover the inside, but looking in mirror I couldn't see Seb anywhere. I was guessing he would come inside, and he did.

"Being first out of Turn 1 would have been quite a different race," he said. "But if and if..."

After that, Bottas ran behind Vettel for the rest of the 71-lap race. He came close to jumping his rival with an early pit stop, but he didn't seem to have the pace to do anything about the race leader.

"It was very, very close," he said. "I was trying to put pressure on Sebastian but it didn't lead to anything more.

• Vettel wins from Bottas as Hamilton recovers to fourth

"I think the race pace between us and Ferrari was pretty close today with their same strategies," he continued. "We had a really similar pace today. There was not much difference.

"We're very equal with Ferrari here - that's not good, we have to be ahead!

"The supersoft could maybe put a bit more pressure on Sebastian. We went to the soft and tried to undercut and initially tried to attack but there was no way to get past."

Bottas fell back from the rear of the Ferrari during the middle section of the race. However, he denied that he had been struggling on the soft compounds.

"I think maybe it looked like we struggled," he admitted. "But I was kind of waiting and tried to manage the tyres and tried attack him at the end again. So we tried, but there was just nothing left anymore."

With Bottas bottled up in second, it allowed his team mate Lewis hamilton to take all the attention with his charge to fourth from the back of the grid.

"Lewis did a really great comeback, got some really good points," Bottas said. But he denied that this meant that Hamilton had been more aggressive or on a better race strategy than he had.

"I think the strategy Lewis was on, firstly he made a great race coming back for good points," he said. "But I think the supersoft in the end [that Hamilton was on] was working much better and you could really attack. We kind of just had to manage."

Second place this weekend does at least keep Bottas' hopes for the runners-up spot in the drivers championship. He's currently 22 points behind Vettel in the standings, meaning he has to win in Abu Dhabi.

Even so, Vettel could put it out of reach simply by finishing in the top eight in the season finale in two weeks time.

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