Valtteri Bottas successfully avoided a costly clash with Daniel Ricciardo at the end stages of the Chinese GP, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff revealed.
The best overtaker on the grid, Ricciardo won the race on Sunday after getting a fresh set of tyres in a well-timed pitstop during the safety car deployment.
Once the race started, the Aussie had a fantastic run, overtaking all the cars in the front, one at a time. His manoeuvres tell the tales of precision and mastery over his craft and is worth watching again.
His final overtake of the race, on Bottas was simply breath-taking. He moved on the Finnish driver at Turn 6.
Wolff acknowledged it was an excellent pass, but he also revealed it would have been a ‘brutal’ overtake which could have caused a collision had it not been for timely evasive action from Bottas.
“Daniel is one of the very good drivers, and he proved it again,” said Wolff. “He was very efficient, he was able to wait for his opportunity, he was aggressive when it was needed. Overall [it was] a very good race for him.
“Maybe the manoeuvre on Valtteri was a bit… brutal. But it proved to work. He had Valtteri helping him with that, to avoid a collision. But that is racing and great.”
The Finnish driver’s second place was the only good outcome from the weekend for the Silver Arrows team, Wolff admitted.
“The only thing I see positive is Valtteri’s race,” he said. “That was really awesome. No mistakes. Unlucky with the Safety Car.
“Even with the Ricciardo overtake, if Valtteri wouldn’t have opened the door last minute Ricciardo would have taken him out.a
“He’s the only one who was without fault [in the race].”
Bottas says he did not try to block the pass because he did not want to compromise the exit and he also knew the Aussie will pass through no matter what.
“He was really closing in quickly and a big pace difference,” said the Finn.
“They had a really strong car today and on top of that fresh tyres at that point so seeing the pace he disappeared afterwards, it think it was only a matter of time.
“By that situation, I was going to defend into Turn 6, so it was a bit of a compromise how extreme you go with it, you go very extreme, he’s definitely going to get you at the exit if he can choose the line behind you.
“He tends to find the space from inside even while you defend and it was just a matter of time.”
