Bottas insists he's still in the title fight

Cape Town - Dropping 41 points behind Sebastian Vettel in Belgium, Valtteri Bottas insists his title quest is not yet over - but he does need some bad luck to befall his rivals.

The Mercedes driver was on track for a third place at Spa on Sunday only for a Safety Car to bunch up the field.

He lost out to Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen at the restart, falling from third to fifth and was unable to recover.

As such Bottas now trails Vettel by 41 points while Lewis Hamilton is 34 ahead of his team-mate.

"If I perform well because it is eight races with a big amount of points," he said.

"The guys in front of me in the championship haven’t had any DNF, hopefully of course not for us, but maybe it can happen.

"But I don’t think that way. I don’t let those negative things come to my mind.

"For sure at some point I understand if the team wants to go for the championship and really make sure that at least one of the guys wins but it’s a bit early.

"We need to go race by race and every race there are different situations."