Valtteri Bottas believes Kimi Antonelli now owes him… a dinner: the Finn joked after the Belgian Grand Prix, where the Mercedes driver secured his sixth victory of the season.
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On Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps, Antonelli crossed the finish line first after a hard-fought race.
At the restart following a Virtual Safety Car period, Charles Leclerc had taken the lead, but the Italian managed to regain the advantage a few laps later.
A helping hand
The overtake occurred as the two leaders were about to lap Bottas’s Cadillac: « They came up on me so fast that it completely surprised me, explained the Finn. I don’t know if it made a difference… Did Kimi pass right after that? »
Jokingly, Bottas then explained how Antonelli could thank him: « Ah, in that case, Kimi can buy me dinner! No, more seriously, their closing speed really caught me off guard. »
Beyond this anecdote, Bottas acknowledges that Cadillac is still going through a complicated first season. The American team has not yet scored a single point in the championship, even though his teammate Sergio Pérez came very close to the top 10 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
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Cadillac wants to bounce back in Hungary
The Finn hopes, however, that the characteristics of the Hungaroring will be more suitable for the car: « I hope it will be better. It shouldn’t be extremely hot and the circuit is mainly composed of slow and medium-speed corners. It’s precisely in these sections that we lose the least ground to others. With a good qualifying, you never know, we might be able to do something. »
Bottas, however, believes that Spa-Francorchamps clearly revealed the current limitations of the car: « At least we finished the race with a car, which will allow us to learn a lot. But this event especially highlighted the problems we still have. »
According to him, reliability remains a sensitive point, but tire management is also a major weakness: « We still suffer from reliability issues, but also from very significant tire degradation. Here, this is partly explained by the fast corners. We lack aerodynamic downforce in these sections, the car slides more and destroys the tires. So there is still a lot of work to do. »
Cadillac thus hopes to take advantage of the very different characteristics of the Hungarian Grand Prix to finally get closer to the points and continue its progress in its first Formula 1 season.
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