SHANGHAI, China -- Valtteri Bottas has vowed not to make the same mistake again after he spun off behind the Safety Car at the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver was in fifth place when he attempted to warm his tyres and lost the rear of the car. His car spun onto the grass and then he struggled to get it pointing in the right direction before dropping to 12th place and out of contention for a podium.
"It was out of Turn 10," he explained. "I got a call, I think in Turn 7, saying the Safety Car was coming in at the end of the lap, so it was the last chance, in those straights, to do a bit of weaving to get the temperature into the tyres and out of Turn 10 I was going quite slow, trying to put heat into the tyres by going left and right, accelerating at the same time. I got into a bit of a slide, overcorrected it and spun into the grass. It was slow to get it out of the grass...
"That's a mistake I'm not really proud of, but I was trying to do everything I could to make the tyres warm. I was trying to get the tyres warmer than in any car around me, to be able to attack, but I went too far, made a mistake, spun, lost a lot of time, a lot of places, a lot of tyre temperature.
"It was a bit of a slow start after that, to get all the tyres to work and then, at time, in free air, after that, I think the car was handling pretty well."
Bottas said the important thing was not to dwell on the mistake and is looking forward to getting back on track at next weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix.
"I apologised to everyone. It was a silly mistake; I guess these things happen but it feels pretty s--- when it happens to you. The main thing is not to do it again and I'm glad Bahrain is already in one week.
"The worst thing to do now would be not stop thinking about that mistake. I need to understand how I can improve in the future and need to move on. I know the pace is there, I can do very good things with the car and as a team we did a stronger job, in terms of car pace, than what we had done on Sunday in Melbourne. I just need to keep going and the results will come."