Valtteri Bottas lost out on a race win in Azerbaijan over the weekend after picking up a puncture, which resulted in the Finnish driver being forced to retire from the race.

The Mercedes driver pulled off an outstanding getaway from the safety car restart, following a collision between the two Red Bull teammates Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen - which also resulted in Sebastian Vettel dropping from second to fifth place after a lock-up at turn one.

This surely meant Bottas was going to secure a victory at the Azerbaijan GP as the gap between him and teammate Lewis Hamilton appeared to slowly increase.

But, a lap later, disaster struck and the race lead was soon passed over to Hamilton after Bottas picked up a puncture to his rear-right tyre, forcing him to retire from the race.

But, Bottas said he was completely unsighted from any debris on the track and put his exit down to pure bad luck.

“It’s difficult to say anything really. Everyone saw what happened, so it’s just unfortunate and unlucky,” Bottas said.

“I will get through. You always need to go through difficulties, that’s part of racing but at the moment it’s really painful.

“This track is difficult, street circuits in general when there are crashes. So it’s always going to be an issue, and this time I was unlucky and I have no idea at any point if I ran at any debris, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t feel anything. So just very, very unlucky.”

If Bottas believes in jinxes, then he may want to have a word with F1 commentator, and former driver, Paul di Resta, as his comments immediately after the Red Bull crash have come back to haunt him.

As Ricciardo and Verstappen wiped each other out of the Grand Prix, Di Resta was heard saying 'Bottas has won the Grand Prix,' and as we all know, that didn't end up happening.

The blame is you on, Di Resta.

Bottas had his victory picked up by Mercedes teammate Hamilton, who comes away from the race weekend with a four-point lead over rival Sebastian Vettel in the Drivers' Championship.

The dramatic exit of Bottas meant that not only did his teammate secure the win for Mercedes, but it also resulted in a podium for Sergio Perez, who finished third.