After taking his second engine penalty in as many races, Bottas started Sunday’s race from 16th on the grid, four places ahead of Red Bull’s Ver🃏stappen, who had al🦋so changed his power unit.

Verstappen turned in an impressive recovery drive to eventually finish directly behind his championship 🌊rival Lewis Hamilton in second place, having taken just six laps to get past Bo🦩ttas.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after ജthe rac✤e in Sochi, Hill said he felt Bottas had done a poor job for his Mercedes team by offering little resistance to Verstappen as the pair exchanged places at Turn 13.

Valtteri, it's Max

— Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing)

“You can’t get away from the fact that the guy who came second star൲ted the race behind him and his teammate won the race,” Hill s⛎aid.

“Valtteri, in the race, we were expecting him to put up a little bit of a defence to fight the Mercedes corner against the Red Bull team and Max Verstappen, but he seemed to just wave him🌊 through.

“Maybe♊ he just didn’t want any trouble. It doesn’t look like he is racing. It was almost like a gift to Max.”

Bottas struggled to make the same kind of progress through the field as Verstappen from the back, though both drivers benefitted massively from a call to pit ꧑early for intermediates as rain hit late on.

Verstappen vaulted up to second, w𝓀hile Bottas also⛎ improved by several positions to take fifth.

Although Hamilton retook the lead of the world championship wi💦th his 100th victory, the result means Verstappen is just two points behind the Mercedes driver heading into the fin🌌al seven races of the season.

“I thought Valtteri was♚ fair with Max when they were racing wheel-to-wheel,” Red Bull team principal Christian H🍷orner said.

“He didn’t 🌼lose any time passing him, and that was an important move in the race.”