Mercedes star Valtteri Bottas started the race in China on pole but had a poor start and finished in second place.
Lewis Hamilton got ahead of Bottas and win Formula 1’s 1000th race.
"Lewis had a better start and for me, the problem was already on the formation lap start,"
said the Finn to pitpass.com."There was a thick white line just in front of my grid box, so, when you're still accelerating, and when I went over the white line I got some wheel-spin on the formation lap start.
"For the race start, I thought maybe it's going to be better with warmer tyres but it wasn't," he continued, "so once I hit the white line, I got the wheel-spin, took too long to recover it, lost a few metres of distance, and Lewis got me. That's how it goes sometimes.
"I think for the first stint Lewis had a pretty strong stint," he admitted. "I was initially closed but obviously when you are behind, you are sliding a bit more, overheating the tyres a bit more. After the first stint, the second and third stints were very similar. Just about how much you were managing or pushing. So, I think the start was the key, but Lewis did a good job on that. So, that's how it goes."