• Brazilian GP - Race

Loose seatbelt hampers Bottas

Valtteri Bottas says a loose seatbelt was one of a number of issues which he battled back from to claim a point at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Bottas started fourth and stayed with team-mate Felipe Massa for the first stint before the problems started, dropping off slightly after his first stop with heavy tyre graining. Then at the second stop Bottas was in the box for a long time as a mechanic tried to fix his belt, which the Finn confirms had come loose during his second stint.

"It came loose suddenly," Bottas said, before confirming it was his lap belt. "We're still investigating."

The main issue for Bottas was the extra work the loose belt created for him in the cockpit.

"Yeah. It was tough. Physically it made it not easy because you are moving about, when you're braking you have to keep it with your hands, it's not ideal. It was not really my day. There were a lot of things which went wrong."

That issue cost Bottas any realistic chance of finishing on the podium but the issues continued in his third stint, meaning Williams considered a fourth stop for the Finn. In the end Bottas was able to just nurse the car home but he says he clung on to a point by the skin of his teeth.

"On my third stint I had an issue with my left rear tyre with graining, there was a big band of massive graining so I think it was a construction problem. That slowed me down quite a lot, I was sliding a lot and the tyres destroyed really quickly. Then the last stint was compromised because it became really long; I had to get to the end without stopping again. I managed it a lot at the beginning and then just could avoid [Daniil] Kvyat overtaking. At one point as well there was some debris in the wing.

"The two stints before that were really bad, we had really bad graining. I thought it was not possible [to only do three stops] but I tried everything to manage. We made it but we had lost so much time before that already. Like I said, not my day but I'm happy for Felipe - it must be a nice feeling getting a podium here. That's good and we're still ahead of Ferrari, I think it's 44 points now and that's a good place to go for Abu Dhabi."

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