Valtteri Bottas has likened driving the final sector at the Sochi Autodrom to “rally-stylꦺe driving” after struggling for grip in Formula 1 Friday practice.

Bottas may have struggled in the final sector - dropping nearly 0.5s to teammate Lewis🥂 Hamilton on his fastest effort in F💛P2 - but it was still enough to top the session as he excelled in the first two-thirds of the lap.

The Finn admits he has to sort his issues in the final sector of the lap if he is to beat Hami𒁃lton to pole in qu⛦alifying.

“It seemed so, especially on the low fuel runs I always had some sort of 🍌problem wi🐓th the rear end, so there’s something to look at there,” Bottas said. “It was more like rally-style driving than F1-style driving and I’m not sure that’s the fastest way around.

“As I🧸 said earlier there’s still a lot of time left on th﷽e table and, also, set-up wise, sector one and sector two feel pretty good, actually, but in sector three the car is still a bit too nervous and if we can get it right I’m sure there’s lap time there too.”

Bottas was forced to come into ൩t🌱he pits prematurely midway through his race simulations in FP2 after reporting an issue over team radio.

He told his engineer over team radio: "There's something in the cockpit, there's something stuck to my left hand, we need to check the left 🔥side of the cockpit. Something is sticking to my hand so I can't turn right. Some tape or something but I don't know if it's something important."

The Finn explained the issue after the session: "There was some tape, sticker or something that whཧen I was turning to th♔e right was kind of limiting my elbow movement, so I had to box for that and got it sorted."