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Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll had an intense wheel-to-wheel race with each other on the start-finish straight on the last lap of the 2023 F1 Canadian GP. Stroll did not have a good weekend at his home race, as he started the race all the way back in 16th, while Bottas was in 14th.
Both drivers moved up the grid and were essentially fighting for 10th, which is also the position that gets drivers a single championship point. The official F1 Twitter page recently posted the video of Lance Stroll's on-board, showing how he gradually caught up to Valtteri Bottas and overtook him, milliseconds before they both crossed the finish line.
The video shows how Stroll was gradually catching up to Bottas but was unable to overtake him on any corner. The Aston Martin engineer was constantly assisting the Canadian to use the different buttons and settings of his car to push as hard as possible. At the end of the entire last lap, after the last chicane, Stroll was able to position his car side-by-side with Bottas.
After the race, it was observed that the Aston Martin driver was only 0.030 seconds ahead of Bottas. Since there were several other wheel-to-wheel battles happening in the midfield, this particular battle was not properly recorded by the TV broadcast cameras but was still great to witness through the on-board cameras.
Lance Stroll got one point from the Canadian GP and is currently eighth in the drivers' championship table, while Bottas is in 15th with only five points.
Valtteri Bottas is confident of racing in F1 for several more years
Valtteri Bottas wants to continue racing in F1 and does not feel old just yet. Speaking on Beyond The Grid, he talked about his age and how he still feels he can continue to race in the sport. He does not feel his performance dropping at the moment.
Valtteri Bottas said:
"I'm still more than happy to do it for quite a long time. But I'll tell you when I'm 39 if I go for 40! It's hard to commit to at the moment, but I still have many, many years for sure. I’m still young compared to some. I’m 33. I still don’t see my Formula 1 career ending in the near future. And I don’t feel any performance losses on my driving or the way I work with the team."
Of course, the Finnish driver is still 33 years old and is relatively younger than some other drivers on the current grid, especially when we see Fernando Alonso who is 41 years old and still racing in the sport.
