Williams Martini F1 Team/Glenn Dunbar ©
In his interview with the media yesterday, Williams driver Valtteri Bottas believes that a loose seatbelt and severe graining in the final stint meant Valtteri Bottas left the Interlagos circuit with just one Championship point.
Starting fourth on the grid the Williams driver had hoped for a solid afternoon and even the chance to battle for a podium result. However, a seat belt issue that needed to be resolved in his second pit stop dropped him well down the order.
In his interview with the media yesterday, Bottas stated that they are still investigating the issue with the loose seat belt. Bottas stated the following:-
‘It came loose suddenly, We’re still investigating. It was tough. Physically it made it not easy because you are moving about, when you’re braking you have to keep it with your hands, it’s not ideal.
‘It was not really my day. There were a lot of things which went wrong.’
For Bottas’ seatbelt to come loose without no explanation is worrying and it is quite right that the Williams team investigate this incident to ensure that it doesn’t happen again during a race. There is no denying that Bottas would have struggled with this while driving and this is one of a few things that sadly went wrong for him yesterday during the race.
In the final stint of the race, Bottas also had to deal with severe graining to his rear left tyre which cost him the opportunity to work his way higher up the order. Further on in his interview yesterday, Bottas stated that the graining he suffered on his tyres cost him a good result. Bottas added the following:-
‘There was a big band of massive graining, so I think it was a construction problem or something in the left-rear. That slowed me down quite a bit, I was sliding a lot and the tyres were destroyed really quickly.
‘Then the last stint was compromised because it became really long, so I just needed to try and get to the end without stopping again.’
It would seem that Bottas suffered a lot of graining from the tyres which has affected several drivers over the course of the weekend which slowed him down quite a lot as you would expect. This then affected him through the final stint of the race and he did his best to get through and score a point yesterday for his troubles.
But overall, Bottas may not have had the weekend that many of us expected him to. But with the tyres graining due to the high temperatures at Interlagos alongside his troubles with the loose seatbelts, Bottas did a good job to get the final point in the race yesterday and keeping Ferrari at bay in the Constructors Championship.
I really hope that the Williams team find out the cause of Bottas’ loose seat belt and that Bottas in Abu Dhabi has a stronger race than he did in Brazil. And you can be sure that Bottas will be ensuring that this is the case and will do everything he can to achieve this in a few weeks time at the final race of the season.
