Valtteri Bottas took the third and final podium spot at the Dutch Grand Prix, but the Mercedes driver noted that a fundamental lack of pace made it a rather uneventful day for him. The Finn started from the second row of the grid at Zandvoort and led at one point. However, a long first stint on the Soft tyre meant he quickly relinquished the lead to eventual race winner Max Verstappen. Bottas noted that he was in survival mode before his pit-stop, as he just didn't have the pace to leave his mark on the Grand Prix. "Unfortunately, for me, [it was] pretty uneventful," Bottas stated after the race. "I kept pushing but we were trying to one-stop, so I went for a long first stint and tried to survive with the tyres until the end. "At the end, we had quite a big gap behind me, so we just made a stop to be safe. We tried but we just didn't have enough pace today." Mercedes opted to bring in both drivers for late pit-stops, with Bottas initially clocking the fastest lap before Lewis Hamilton snatched the extra point on the final lap. "I didn't go for the fastest lap, but Lewis got it," Bottas added. "I'm happy that as a team we got solid points."
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