Valtteri Bottas feels as though he would have been able to pass team-mate Felipe Massa and then pull a gap, which would have improved his chances of winning the British Grand Prix.
Sadly for the Finnish driver, the team told him to hold station behind Massa and only when Bottas's tyres had faded did they give him permission to overtake, halting his chances of victory.
"I feel I would have been able to have pulled a gap," he said after the race in which he eventually finished fifth despite running in second at one point.
"I'm guessing [I could have gone] half a second per lap [quicker] because on the in-lap I was nearly one second quicker [than Massa]."
Whilst he agrees the team shouldn't simply ask Massa to move aside, he believes he should have been given the green light to race his team-mate.
"No one should let anyone by – that's not racing – but of course it would have been nice to be able to race at the point when I had the best opportunities.
"I wasn't allowed to overtake, then we were allowed to race after. But then I never had that opportunity again as the tyres started to wear behind him. "
The eventual rain shower later in the race lost Bottas another place as Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel capitalised on the mixed weather conditions.
"When it started to rain we stopped one lap too late, but the rain really hit us when we were around the pit entry area, and the corner after, so Vettel behind me could react, he saw we were struggling, so he could pit, so I think we were also unlucky."
