Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas knew he was going to have to race hard if he was going to reach the podium in Sunday afternoon's Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit, and unfortunately, the podium was just that little bit too far out of reach at the end of the 53 lap event.
The Finn qualified on the front row of the grid alongside his teammate and eventual race winner, Lewis Hamilton, however Valtteri was hit with a five-place grid penalty when the Brackley based squad were forced to change his gearbox prior to the race, dropping him down to sixth on the grid. (Kimi Raikkonen, who qualified behind him, was also given a penalty which is why it was P6 and not P7)
The Japanese circuit is not an easy one to overtake on but the Finn still managed to fight his way up to 4th with the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo not very far ahead in that much desired third place, but unfortunately he ran out of laps to catch and pass the Australian.
"It was a close fight, but we had some opportunities, especially in the end getting closer to Daniel," Valtteri said after the race. "It was just not enough time. That was pretty much the maximum. The pace seemed to be okay but we always knew coming to this race that overtaking is tricky. Our car was good there, better than two weeks ago. Obviously we didn't get a tough competition with Ferrari, but maybe in two weeks.โ
"Starting sixth, it was never going to be easy. I'm sad that it is only P4 because that is not that exciting, I tried everything I could. It would have been nice to get a bit of a reward with a podium. The strategy choice was definitely good; it went pretty much as we had planned. It gave us opportunities in the end of the race with fresher tyres. Otherwise it would have been really difficult to try something. I was getting really close to the Red Bull but there weren't enough laps left, it just would have been good to be on the podium. That was the target for the race."
