Mercedes feared Bottas was on brink of 'instant kill'

Race winner Valtteri Bottas kept his cool and didn't put a foot wrong on Sunday as he powered his way to victory in the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix - but it was more of a knife edge situation than it looked on the surface.

While his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton has a turbulent day that included a grid drop and a late penalty for clashing with Alex Albon, Bottas was able to sail off into the distance from pole position at the start of the race.

He then confidently navigated three safety car restarts to retain his lead despite pressure from an impatient Hamilton. But any suggestions that it has been an 'easy' day were quickly rejected by the Finn in post-race media interviews.

“Winning a F1 Grand Prix is never easy, but today definitely didn't come easy at all,” he stated emphatically.

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“In the first stint, Lewis lost a bit of time getting through the Red Bulls, so there was quite a bit of margin, He explained of his early lead.

"The first stint was not that bad because I had a decent gap. I could control and make sure we’d make it to the target stop lap. I tried to do the right thing with the tyres and maintaining the car."

However the next phase of the race was more of a problem. With the field bunched up after a safety car, Bottas had Hamilton on his tail trying everything possible to wrest the lead from him.

“In the second stint there was never, like, massive pressure, because I was up in front and we wanted to make really sure we made it to the end," Bottas said. “I was watching on the mirrors and I could see Lewis was pushing pretty, pretty hard and still making use of all the track."

Mercedes engineers on the pit wall were also increasingly worried about a number of issues being detected on both cars, instructing them to focus on securing the 1-2 result rather than fighting each other.

Far from being just a case of coded team orders, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff insisted that there had been genuine concern that one or both cars might end up retiring.

"The situation was pretty serious, right away from the start," he told Motorsport.com. "We saw it started with issues on Valtteri's car, but it was something that can be an instant kill. Then it started on Lewis's car. We didn't really know what it was.

"We know that it was somehow linked to vibration and agitation of the car. That is why we advised them very early on to keep off the kerbs," Wolff added. "At the certain stage, it looked like we would not finish the race with both cars, so we were trying to really cruise home."

"We had some issues with some sensors that were damaged by the vibration of the pretty harsh kerbs we have here," said Bottas, picking up the story.

"Here the more you go on the kerb the more the vibrations ramp up, so you kind of get a feeling for what’s okay and what’s too much," he continued. "There were only a few places where you need to take care, so, after one or two laps I kind of got used to it

"We had to avoid kerbing - which, obviously, costs you quite a bit of lap time," he explained. "But obviously you want to prioritize the reliability, so I took a couple of laps to try and optimize the new way of driving, avoiding the kerbs."

Two more safety cars followed which left the two Silver Arrows under pressure from Albon. But Bottas was just focussing on staying out in front despite the multiple restarts.

"I think I'm starting to master the restarts on this track because I had so many today," he joked. "[I was] in the lead, getting one safety car after another. In the end I was, like, 'Again?!'

"You always try to do something different each time," he added. "I think the last one was a bit on the limit with the safety car line one, crossing with the safety car, but otherwise really good."

"When you are in the lead you just want things to be constant and trouble-free. There were many variables. I managed to dodge many bullets today and get the win."

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