Valtteri Bottas says his race-defining bad start in the Italian Grand Prix was down to his reaction to the lights, and reckons “some disturbance” is hurting him more than his launches.
Slow starts have now cost Bottas dearly in three races, as he dropped down the order in Hungary, lost a place to Max Verstappen in Spain and on Sunday turned second into sixth on the opening lap.
He was fortunate in Hungary not to be punished for moving before the lights went out, even though it contributed to his slow actual getaway there, after he got distracted by lights on his steering wheel.
After the Italian GP Bottas revealed he had “an issue with the actual reaction the lights” and indicated that something is making him delay his launches, rather than get bad ones.
“We’ve been playing around with the way we do start-practising and the protocol we do we changed that a bit, and I feel like there’s been some disturbance sometimes to the actual starts,” said when asked by The Race what had happened.
“And [it is] just not fully being representative of the actual starts. I can’t go much more into detail but it was from my side.
“So again, I nearly went before the lights but luckily, not as much as Hungary. And then for the actual start I was a bit late.
“There’s things to still work on. The launch itself after you drop the clutch, that part is fine, and we’ve made good progress.
“But just getting that consistency into the reaction for start lights, there’s work to do.”
Bottas was never able to recover from that bad launch or even take advantage of what turned out to be a hectic race.
He found himself struggling with understeer through right-hand corners over the rest of the opening lap to the extent he told the team he had a puncture.
“I had two contacts, one in Turn 2 and a slightly bigger one in Turn 5,” he said. “Still, not a massive contact.
“In Turn 6 I was on the outside, I had quite a bit [of] understeer, and then Turn 7 I had pretty big understeer that felt like a puncture.
“Then out of Turn 7 the car was pulling a bit to the right and to the left. It didn’t feel right so I was convinced I had a puncture on the run into Turn 8. I just wanted to make sure I’m going straight from Turn 8.
“Then actually, it kind of recovered and it was fine. I’m not sure if I picked up something on the tyre or if something was wrong with the car from the contact.
“I haven’t heard yet anything with a corner weight or anything. But it felt really odd, so it was a very messy first lap.”
Bottas said he struggled to get closer than seven tenths to the cars in front throughout the race, in which he battled a cooling issue that forced him to lift-and-coast and get out of the tow at times.
He also did not have access to the full suite of engine modes usually available because this was the first race with a new technical directive requiring a consistent combustion engine mode through the grand prix.
But he said this was unlikely to have transformed his race as his main issue was “lacking speeding in the corner and just not being able to follow in the Lesmos and then Ascari and Parabolica”.
It added up to what Bottas admitted was an “opportunity missed” vs team-mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton, who was forced to last by a stop-and-go penalty for pitting when the pitlane was closed.
Bottas only finished two places ahead of Hamilton, who recovered to seventh and scored the fastest lap to concede just three points to Bottas and thus still enjoy a healthy 47-point championship lead.
“I think as a team it was definitely opportunity missed, we started one and two and we should have been one and two with the car we have,” he said.
“But it was a crazy race. And yes, I got unlucky in terms of some people stop before the safety car and red flags so they got me, but some people got even more unlucky than me. So, it could have been a much worse day.
“If I were now in the championship lead before for the weekend, I would be more satisfied with this because I would be gaining to the main competitors.
“But obviously I’m chasing and I need to make bigger gains if I still want to keep the title hopes there.
“So, I feel it is an opportunity missed. It could have been better. We move on.”
With Bottas unable to assume control of the race for Mercedes, the door was opened to an unlikely podium trio of Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz Jr and Lance Stroll.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff did not rush to judge Bottas’s performance and said he was not immediately disappointed his driver was not there to pick up the pieces when Hamilton dropped back.
“Before being disappointed I think we need to find out what happened to the car,” said Wolff.
“The car didn’t turn well into right-hand corners. Valtteri actually thought that he had a puncture, but we couldn’t see anything on the data and that’s why we kept him out.
“But in all those right-hand corners, you could see that he was losing a few car lengths to the car before.
“And obviously if that happens through Ascari and Parabolica, even with DRS you can’t overtake.
“So, we need to properly analyse what happened to the car. I’m of the conviction that there must have been something.
“The driver wouldn’t speak of a puncture right after the start if there wasn’t anything.”
