Bottas wඣas running ahead of Hamilt﷽on after the seven-time champion was put on a two-stop strategy in a bid to beat Max Verstappen for the win.

The Finn was on for a comfortable third-place in Barcelona and was told on Lap 52 to move over for his teammate to ensure Hamilton di🍒dn’t lose any unnecessary time in his fight with Verstappen.

Hamilton wasn’t let through immediately and he was forced to make a lunge on Botꦬtas into Turn 10.

Explaining why he didn’t let Hamilton through immediately, Bottas said he wanted to make sure he had a pit stop gap over Leclerc before making his second stop and wanted to losꦗe as little time as possible.

“Yes, I got the message and obviously we were in different strategies at that point,” Bottas said in the post-race press conference. “Unless something crazy would happen, I wasn’t really fighting anymore with him, but the thing was that, at that time I was trying to get Charles out of my pit window, so I could stop again and tr💎y be ahead of him, so I was really conscious I didn’t want to lose too much 🅠time and I was focusing on my race.

“It’s about balancing things but, of course, as a racing driver you prioritize yourself, your race, because that’s what you do, but, also,💛 we work as a team, so you don’t want to ruin the race for the team if that’s not possible for you.

“So, I tried to do the best thing I could for us and the team, but also for myself, but it’s always hard doing these kinds of thing🥃s, you don’t know if the ot❀her driver is going to predict what’s going to happen and where to go. I think that, in the end, it was kind of OK.”

Hamilton had no issues with what occurred with ꦚBottꦚas.

“I think we’re the best teammates,” Hamilton added. “Honestly, I didn’t know he had a message so in my mind I was like ‘we are racing’ and that’s totally fine for me, particularly early on in thi𒆙s part of this season.

“In my mind, I was like ‘OK, I’ve got to get close and go for an overtake’. Obviously when we went into Turn 10… we were on massively different strategies because I was going to get him at some stage because Iܫ had much better tyres. We were going into Turn 10… I thought there was a gap there, then I wasn’t quite sure and then there was a gap and Valtteri was completely fair, I hope I didn’t lose him too much time.

෴“This is how we win as a team. We sometimes are in that position where we’ve got to put the team first and getting a second and a third is go✅od, but getting a first is max points, and that’s key.”