Bottas’s weekend in Austin was compromised after he was forced to take his third engine penalty in four races for exceeding his allocation of power unit components amid Merce🍸des’ continued battle with reliability concerns. 

He started ninth after qualifying behind both Red Bulls and Merced𓄧es teammate Lewis Hamilton and could only recover to sixth, behind Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren. 

With Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez finishing eithe🐎r side of the seco♛nd-placed Hamilton on the podium, Red Bull was able to reduce Mercedes’ advantage in the constructors’ championship down to 23 points with five races remaining.

Despite Bottas’s struggles to make progress in the race, Wolff dismissed the suggestion that t𝄹he Finn dropped points which could end up proving costly to Mercedes later down the line. 

“Valtteri didn’t drop any p♉oints,” Wolff said. 

“It was always very clear that it would🌊 be difficult from where he started because of the engine penalty to make it back to the sharp end. He’s performed brilliantl🃏y in the last race and I think he’s done very well here [Austin]. 

“So we just need to keep it up as a team, both drivers need to score and I have no doubt that Valtteri will be a strong contributor n🦩ot only to a constructors’ championship but also the drivers’ championship.”

Bottas lost significant time stuck behind Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri in theꦐ first stint and conceded making up ground was always going to prove tricky. 

“It was difficult, like I expec꧟ted,”🌌 Bottas explained. “What made it more tricky in the first stint was being behind the AlphaTauris, as I couldn’t get by. 

“Ob🏅viously that lost me quite a bit of time, and, unfortunately there was no help with Safety Cars or something. So I made some progress but quite slowly.”