Bottas hopes to have done with reliability issues
After being penalized three times in the last four Grand Prix races, Valtteri Bottas does not want any more engine problems until the end of the season.
While the regulations allow the use of three V6 engines per year, Valtteri Bottas has already exceeded his quota with five races remaining. The Finn hopes to finally shake off this bad luck that has been following him since Monza, while Mercedes, at the same time, has concerns about the reliability of its power units.
« I hope we are done now,” declared Bottas on Motorsport.com. « I think the two engines I have in stock will be good. We haven’t detected any issues with them, so I hope I can go all the way without incurring a new penalty because even a five-place grid drop can compromise a race in such a tight championship ».”
Having started from ninth position (following a five-place grid penalty), Bottas could only timidly climb up, with the Fininsh driver finishing sixth, behind a McLaren and a Ferrari. “I was expecting it to be difficult. It was very complicated from the first stint because I was stuck behind the AlphaTauris. I lost a lot of time and there was no safety car to help me, so I could climb up but slowly. I don’t expect an easy weekend in Mexico either. Red Bull has always been strong there and their engine works well at high altitude. But we will try to bring back more points than them.”
Since the introduction of hybrid V6 engines in 2014, regulations have pushed teams to develop increasingly reliable cars or face penalties on the starting grid. While engines could have a lifespan of only two races in 2007 (during the V8 engine era), teams were only allowed five engines for the entire season in 2014. This number dropped to four in 2017 and then to three from 2018 onwards.
