Valtteri Bottas DEMANDS meeting with Toto Wolff after Lewis Hamilton ‘wingman’ claim

Mercedes secured a one-two lockout at the front of the grid which enabled Hamilton to comfortably extend his lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

Bottas showed excellent defensive work in second place to deny Ferrari pair Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen a chance to challenge the leader.

And when the Finnish driver was told about his boss’ praise after the race he was furious with being essentially labelled a No 2 driver.

“First of all wingman hurts,” Bottas said.

“Second of all I don’t see any positive in this race for me.

“We thought in theory we should have been able to do that one stop. We had to stop earlier than we wanted because of Kimi, we had to cover him, and still 20 laps before the end everything was feeling ok with good control and the pace and my position.

“But the rear tyres started to die. I tried to defend the best I could, as aggressive as I could, but it just ended up being a bit of a mess with the end with the broken front wing and everything.”

“We need to speak after this race. We are over halfway of the year. The points gap is big, so for sure the team will decide at some point.”

Bottas remained second until a dramatic 66th lap which saw him collide with Vettel on Turn 2.

The Mercedes suffered damage to the front left wing before Bottas then collided with Daniel Ricciardo and was ordered to give the Red Bull his fourth position back on the penultimate lap.

“With Seb, he had a good run into Turn Two, we had a bit of a battle into Turn One,” Bottas added.

“I still had my nose inside into Turn Two, he was on the outside, he turned in very early and for me there was nowhere to go.

“So we touched and I was the only one who got damage. Fair enough, I think a racing incident.

“With Daniel, pretty much a similar thing. But I was next to him on the inside.

“I had no half of my front wing so I was locking up as well.

“I’m sure he saw I was still going quite quick into the corner, but he turned in and then we touched.”