Bottas pit lane incident cost Button ‘a lot of time’

Jenson Button says the pit lane incident he was involved in with Valtteri Bottas at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix cost him ‘a lot of time’, as it dropped his MP4-30 out of DRS range.

The Williams driver left his box as the McLaren-Honda racer drove past him to make his first stop, which resulted in Bottas clipping the back of Button’s car. Having lost half of his front wing, the Finn was forced to pit for a new nosecone on the very next lap before being handed a five-second penalty for unsafe release.

Speaking about the contact, Button said: “I saw he was going to get released. Obviously, you are not really supposed to considering I am pulling in. I was bracing for the hit and it happened. It disrupted our pit stop quite a bit and the mechanics were a bit scared when I came into the box.

“We lost a lot of time. The worst bit for me was that the only way we could stay in contention was to stay in the DRS zone, which is the whole game with us this year. I lost that so we lost a lot of time.”

Despite the setback, Button was able to drive a solid race at Yas Marina Circuit where he ended up crossing swords again with Bottas only this time it was for position.

“It probably was my best race of the year in terms of enjoyment. I know I only finished 12^th but that was an enjoyable race, trying to keep cars behind and overtake cars.

“I was not really doing a lot of overtaking. I overtook Ericsson, which is fun. Defending was pretty good. I had some fun out there, being quite aggressive. I actually overtook a Williams.

“I was able to keep Bottas behind in the end there, which surprised me. I was very happy to do that.”

“You would not think I could keep a car behind that is so much quicker in a straightline but we could so there is definitely positives to take from that.”

REPORT: Rosberg takes third win in a row to end season

AS IT HAPPENED: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix