Valtteri Bottas says he braked “as late as I could” to keep a charging Daniel Ricciardo at bay in the Italian Grand Prix, but the Williams driver ultimately had to settle for sixth behind the Red Bull.
Having out-qualified his former Formula Renault 2.0 rival by 0.001s, Bottas led Ricciardo for nearly the entire race until the Australian pulled off a stunning move with a very late lunge into the first chicane.
“He came from quite far away,” Bottas reflected afterwards. “Obviously he was on the fresher and faster tyre. He got a good slipstream [out of Parabolica] but I tried to use everything from the engine that I can, basically pressing all the buttons whatever you can press.
“And I was braking as late as I could for the corner but he still managed to dive on the inside and have much better traction out of the chicane.”
After a few difficult grands prix for Williams, Bottas is not too disappointed with his Monza points haul, though he expected to have a better race pace.
“In the end, [Ricciardo] pulled a gap of five seconds or more. I think the problem was that we just did not have the pure pace as we thought we would and that meant I had to push the tyre a bit more than what I wanted to keep my position and in the end I was struggling.”
More importantly for Bottas and his team is that Williams re-claims fourth place ahead of Force India in the Constructors’ championship for three points.
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