Valtteri Bottas was unhappy with the strategic choices made by Merce𒁃des during the season-opening Formula 🍒1 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Bottas struggled to stick w♚ith Max Verstappen an💙d Lewis Hamilton in the early stages of the race in Bahrain after dropping behind Charles Leclerc on the opening lap.

The Finn came into play in the middle part of the grand pr🦄ix, running just over fꦅour seconds behind Verstappen.

Merc꧋edes decided to st🥂op Bottas a second time, just a couple of laps after the team told him: “We’ll be going long”.

A 10-second delay on his second stop meant Bottas had to se💞ttle for third, setting the fastest lap on the final lap after making a third stop.

Reflecting on the first race of the sea𝔉son, Bottas felt the strategy wasn’t as aggressive as he’d have liked.

“Disappointing, for sure,” Bottas said. “Good thing we got good points as a team. From my side, at least for me, it felt like strategy-wise we were on the defensive side, instead of 🧜attacking, which I’m quite surprised and not quite normal.  

“Not ideal and then🅠 I had quite a slow pit stop which, in the end, took away ✤any opportunities. At times the pace was good but disappointed.”

Given it was two Mercedes cars against just one Red Bull in Bahrain, Bo🧔ttas thinks it was a missed opportunity f♚or him.

“Yes, for sure we managed to have tw🦂o cars and, that way, we had also had different tyre choices so we could really play with the strategy, but I still think from my side there should have been more to get today,” Bottas added.