Formula 1: Championship implications of Valtteri Bottas’ tire puncture

Valtteri Bottas’ tire puncture with under three laps to go in the fourth race of the 2018 Formula 1 season had huge championship implications.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Valtteri Bottas entered the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the fourth race of the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 season, having never lead the Formula 1 driver standings before in his career, which began back in the 2013 season when he signed a deal to drive for Williams, where he stayed through the 2016 season before replacing Nico Rosberg at Mercedes.

He was less than three laps away from changing that on the 20-turn, 6.003-kilometer (3.73-mile) Baku City Circuit in Baku, Azerbaijan. He had led every lap of the 51-lap race following the pit stop of Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who started the race from the pole position and led every lap of it until he came into pits and relinquished the lead on lap 31.

On lap 39, a safety car was deployed for an incident involving Aston Martin Red Bull Racing teammates Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. Bottas took advantage of this, as he came into the pits and then came out ahead of Vettel, thus maintaining the race lead.

Bottas held off Vettel on the ensuing restart on lap 48. Vettel got a run on him going into turn one, but he locked up his tires and overshot the corner, which caused him to lose a few spots.

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Meanwhile, Bottas maintained the lead and began to pull away from the rest of the field. It looked like he was well on his way to winning his fourth career Formula 1 race and earning his first win of the 2018 season, thus allowing him to take the lead of the driver standings for the first time in his career.

However, he ran over a piece of debris on the front straightaway as he drove down to turn one with just under three laps to go, and the right rear tire of his car sustained a puncture because of it. He slowed down drastically and was almost immediately swallowed up by the rest of the field before coming to a stop. He did not finish the race and was officially scored in 14th place.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton, Bottas’ teammate, went on to win the race. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished in second place, while Sahara Force India’s Sergio Perez finished in third ahead of Vettel in fourth.

Had the right rear tire of Bottas’ car not sustained a puncture, he likely would have gone on to win the race. Instead of receiving zero championship points, he would have received 25 points and would be in the lead of the standings for the first time in his Formula 1 career with 65 points as opposed to sitting in fourth place well out of the lead with 40 points.

Here are what the top four positions in the Formula 1 driver standings would look like had Bottas won the race ahead of Hamilton, Raikkonen, Perez and Vettel in second, third, fourth and fifth place, respectively, compared to what the top four positions in the standings actually look like with four races down and 17 races to go in the 2018 season.

With no puncture

Reality

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With the huge championship implications of Valtteri Bottas’ tire puncture in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, will the 28-year-old Finn end up contending to win the 2018 Formula 1 title after all? There are still 17 races to go before the season is set to conclude on the final Sunday of November with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, so it is definitely possible, but he certainly has a decent amount of catching up to do now.