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 V𝓡erstappen, who had also changed his power unit.

Verstappen turned i🥂n an impressive recovery drive to eventual🌺ly finish directly behind his championship rival Lewis Hamilton in second place, having taken just six laps to get past Bottas.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race 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 started the race behind him and his teammate won the race,” Hill said.

“Valtteri, in the race, we w✱ere 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 did♏n’t w♛ant 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 progresꦛs through the field as Verstappen from the back, though both drivers benefitted massively from a call to pit early for intermediates as rain hit late on.

Verstappen vaulted up to secꦰond, while Bo🎐ttas also improved by several positions to take fifth.

Although Hamilton retook the lead of the world championship with his 100th victory, the result means Verstappen is just🐎 two points behind the Mercedes driver heading int🍷o the final seven races of the season.

“I thought Valtteri was fair with Max when they ൩were racing wheel-to-൲wheel,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said.

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