Bottas: Hamilton clash an 'unlucky situation'

Valtteri Bottas was disappointed after retiring from the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix, although he feels the incident with Lewis Hamilton that put him out was just an 'unlucky situation'.

Bottas and Hamilton touched on the approach to turn 4 on lap 47, with the former then losing his left-rear wheel as a result: "In the end it was quite an unlucky situation," Bottas told ESPNF1.com. "It was not nice to finish the season with DNF but I think in the end I could not have done anything differently.

"First of all I didn't know that I was one lap behind him - I thought we were racing - but even though I was one lap behind I still would have tried to overtake.

"In this track in the middle sector if you're behind someone it's very easy to start the graining with the tyres, you start to slide more. With the top speed we had on the main straight it was quite difficult to overtake there, so it was a completely planned move.

"I used up all my KERS and I tried to get him from the outside and then we just hit. It was not a big impact but just the right angle to destroy the rear tyre and that was it."

Bottas, who took his maiden points finish in the USA last time out, however, admitted that another top-ten was unlikely at Interlagos.

"Unfortunately we had to end the season without finishing the race," he added in Williams' official post-race release. "We seemed to be struggling a bit with the prime tyre but once we put the option tyres on we seemed to be able to catch the cars in front. We had an incident with Hamilton where I tried to keep my line overtaking on the outside and we touched. It's disappointing to end the season like this but a points-finish may have been too much for us anyway."