Mercedes has revealed that Valtteri Bottas' struggle for pace in the opening stint of the Bahrain Grand Prix was caused by a "perfect storm" of problems on the grid.
Bottas led away from pole position, the first of his Formula One career, but was unable to shake the attention of Sebastian Vettel and the train of cars made up of teammate Lewis Hamilton and the Red Bulls behind. Wolff says Bottas' poor pace at the start was due to incorrect tyre pressures, caused by a broken generator on the grid,which then left Mercedes unable to react to Sebastian Vettel's race-defining pit stop on lap 10.