James Allison feels for Bottas: "Desperately difficult day for him"

Mercedes technical director James Allison has admitted that the Russian Grand Prix was "desperately difficult" for his driver Valtteri Bottas, who was ordered to give up his first win of the season so Lewis Hamilton could get past.

Bottas had basically been the fastest man all weekend, as the Finn took pole position over Hamilton on Saturday, and pulled away from the Brit during the race as well after surviving an early attack from him.

Halfway through the race, it was Allison who instructed Bottas over team radio that he needed to let Hamilton past, as the reigning champion was showing some tyre degradation while being under attack from Sebastian Vettel in P3.

Despite asking to swap back places at the end, Bottas had to finish behind his teammate, leaving both drivers with a bitter taste in their mouths despite grabbing a one-two.

“The pace of the Ferrari put us under pressure all the way through the first stint, and we rather fumbled things as a consequence, allowing us to lose the pace to Sebastian [Vettel] at the first stop,” Allison explained to TheCheckeredFlag after the flag.

“Lewis [Hamilton] spared our blushes and put things back on an even keel for us.

“But a little later in the race we got into a degree of difficulty once again when Lewis followed Valtteri [Bottas] quite closely from behind, damaging his rear tyres.

“With Valtteri in front and on rubber that was working well, we took the very difficult decision to allow Lewis to go in front and have a car with good rubber protecting the one-two that would come our way if we would just look after the tyres to the finish.”

“And that’s what happened in the end, but it was a desperately difficult day for Valtteri. He took his disappointment like a Trojan, but I could see standing next to him on the podium that it was hurting him,” Allison concluded.

Hopefully, Bottas can make things right and destroy all competition soon, because seeing him as heartbroken as he was in Sochi was hard to watch.