Force India have gone ahead of Williams in the 2016 F1 world championship for constructors after tactical error during the Belgian Grand Prixx which cost Valtteri Bottas fourth place and possible even a podium.
As a result Bottas has come out and urged his team to get their act together and stop with the mistakes if they want to beat Force India in the championship.
Speaking after the race at Spa-Francorchamps, Bottas told media, “I think it was more or less what we expected! What we saw on Friday was a very strong pace. It was a bit cooler today and I think that helped us. It was quite a positive day in terms of the race pace.”
“But, in the end, we wasted a good opportunity today, now Force India is ahead and if we really want to beat them we need to stop making mistakes.”
Bottas was informed about the bad pit stop call after the race, “They were absolutely sure there was going to be a red flag, so by staying out I would have kept my position, but I think it was just too big a risk to take at that point.”
“I was in a very good position, there was no need to risk, in my opinion. We will talk about it more and analyse it well but it was very disappointing. I was in a very good position, the pace wasn’t too bad so we definitively lost a lot of points because of that,” mused the Finn who has yet to sign a contract with Williams for 2017.
The team’s head of perfromance, Rob Smedley, explained, “The key point of the race for us was the safety car when Magnusson had the huge accident and damaged the barrier. We thought it would be a red flag and so planned our strategy around that.””
“However the red flag didn’t come out very quickly, and so we had to pit Valtteri. The red flag did finally come out, as predicted, however by this point it had ruined our race,” lamented Smedley.
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