Liam Lawson has accepted blame for running Valtteri Bottas off the track and costing the Sauber driver a shot at his first points of the season during the Qatar Grand Prix.
Bottas, who will leave Sauber at the end of the year, has yet to secure a top-10 finish this season but a floor upgrade ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix has made the team more competitive in the closing stages of 2024.
Team-mate Zhou Guanyu, who will also depart the squad at season’s end, finished eighth in Qatar to seal Sauber’s first points of a dismal campaign, with Bottas only able to recover to 11th after a first corner spin for Lawson following the first safety car restart on lap five pushing the Finn wide.
“It was just my bad. I thought we had really good [tyre] temperature to be honest,” RB driver Lawson conceded, revealing he had apologised to Bottas for the error.
“I worked a lot on the tyres on the restart on the safety car, went for a move and half way around the corner realised…basically, I was sliding up the track towards him and at that point, I just tried to get out of it honestly because I was about to hit him.
"So I tried to check up, I spun the car. I don't know if we touched, I guess we did, but that was on me.
“It was my fault. Obviously, he did nothing wrong. I didn't expect him to stay out there to be honest, and because he did obviously I was sliding up the track, but it was my fault.”
Bottas is the only driver to have raced in all 23 races so far this season and failed to score a point.
He will be hoping the recent improvements to the Sauber will allow him to address that in the final round in Abu Dhabi this weekend as he bemoaned his luck.
“I think everything just went against me - well, since the Lawson incident,” said Bottas.
“He spun and then I lost the track position. We decided before the race, whoever is ahead, we will get the optimal strategy and the other one, a support strategy. That was it.
“Also the timing of the safety car was the worst for me, possible. So it's a shame because even like a really bad race now, I was 11th! So a half-decent race should have got points.
"But obviously I'm happy for Zhou and for the team to at least get a couple of points.
“Everyone deserves at least those couple of points. Nobody wants to be that team who doesn't score, so at least that curse is off. But like I said, I've still got zero points, which is not great. So that's the main feeling now.
“So, yeah, I have one race left for now and hopefully in Abu Dhabi we are going to fight as well. But yeah, just overall, I think this race for me kind of sums up the season, just didn't work.”
