Valtteri Bottas "wasn't happy at all" with the grid penalty which has demoted him from fourth to seventh for tomorrow's Brazilian Grand Prix.
The stewards ruled that Bottas had overtaken the Sauber of Felipe Nasr during FP2 on Friday afternoon under red flags, deployed to recover Fernando Alonso's stricken McLaren. Bottas managed to split the Ferraris in qualifying but drops to the fourth row after serving the penalty.
The Williams driver says there was little he could do to avoid passing Nasr, a move he had already committed to when the red flags came out.
"I think I did nothing wrong," Bottas said. "I wasn't happy with the penalty at all. I was just trying to be safe and avoid locking wheels or do anything silly when I saw the light panel with the red flag.
"I was already committed to overtaking, Nasr was completely to the right of the track, so I think the move was completely safe. I slowed down very quickly after I saw the red flag but they were very strict and there was a penalty."
Despite the penalty, Bottas thinks a spot on the podium can be his if Williams optimises its strategy.
"I think we can do a lot of good things from seventh and eighth on the grid. It's a long race and the pace seems to be quite good, so we need to target a place on the podium and I think that's possible."