Mercedes has admitted that Valtteri Bottas was correct in that a one-stop plan may have worked in Sao Paulo with hindsight.
Six laps after his second pit stop, Bottas claimed over team radio that the team had “thrown away an easy 1-2” in Brazil because he thought he could have finished on his first set of hard tyres.
In the end, the Finn came in third behind teammate Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, however Mercedes will be hoping for a 1-2 finish in the results archive.
That’s because they’re pushing to have Verstappen retrospectively penalized for his defensive move against Hamilton at Turn 4, which resulted in both cars going off track and the Red Bull holding on to the lead for another 11 circuits.
Bottas finished just over three seconds behind Verstappen at Interlagos, so if the Dutchman is given a five-second penalty, he will drop one position in the revised standings – and lose three World Championship points, cutting his lead to 11 points.
Due to the presence of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez in fourth place, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff responded to Bottas’ claim after the race, saying, “I’m not convinced we could have held on to a one-stop”, while trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin added that: “The problem is if you gamble wrong, we could have risked a podium with Valtteri.”
Technical director Mike Elliott admitted in the team’s post-race debrief that Bottas had been right all along.
Asked if they could have “pulled off the one-stop”, Elliott said: “I think the answer in hindsight is probably yes.
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