Valtteri Bottas number 77, drives for one of the dominating teams in the modern Hybrid era, Mercedes AMGF1 Team. Regaining Double world champions matched the Ferrari record by winning five consecutive double world championship between 2014-2018.
Mercedes is well ahead of its rivals in both drivers and constructor standings in this year’s ongoing championship battle. Mercedes and lewis can make history by winning record-breaking 6th double championship by end of this season. But Bottas is on the verge of another disappointing season, can he ever win the driver’s championship? or Is He Championship material?
Securing a contract extension…
Bottas joined Mercedes F1 team during the start of the 2017 season on a 1-year contract, in place of then retired 2016 Champion, Nico Rosberg. Before that, he drove for Williams Team for four seasons from 2013 to 2016 and securing 9 podium finishes.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolf was part of the Bottas management team, one can argue that helped him to land Mercedes Contract. After failed to register a single race win in a disappointing 2018 season, he was brought back to the Mercedes F1 team on another 1-year contract extension.
Mercedes F1 extended Bottas contract another year till the end of 2020 season, He will be racing for them alongside Hamilton.
Can Bottas win the driver’s title with Mercedes?
In F1 history, every team dominated for a particular time period when technical regulations are in favor of them and it will be tough on any team to win continuously because of cost and effort associated with Formula1. So going by history, Mercedes’s golden run may not continue for a longer time.
F1 heading for major technical regulation changes for the 2021 season, which will play a significant role in determining the next dominant team and no one knows how the drivers market will shape up at the end of next season. By considering all the factors, Bottas has only this year and 2020 season to win the drivers championship with Mercedes.
Bottas vs Hamilton at Mercedes
Bottas joined Mercedes at the start of 2017, the ongoing season is his third year with Champions. Since both Lewis and Valtteri confirmed for next season, he has to compete with multiple world champion Lewis for another season.
Let’s review how Bottas fared against Lewis Hamilton in the inter-team battle.
Bottas was outperformed by Lewis in all departments. Bottas scored only 5 wins with a ~9% win percentage, compared to Lewis’s 28 wins (50% win percentage).
“You have to be a bastard if you want to win in Formula 1 anyway. No question. You cannot win being a nice guy. Tell me, one nice guy, out there?”- Niki Lauda (Reuters)
Why Bottas is not able to Challenge Lewis in the same car?
Though F1 is a team sport, history showed us that only selfish, ruthless and brutal drivers will win a championship. Former Mercedes Non-Executive chairmen Late Niki Lauda once quoted while giving an interview to Reuters ” You have to be a bastard if you want to win in Formula 1 and You cannot win being a nice guy”.
The above quote suites Bottas well, he is one of the Nice guys in the Paddock. He doesn’t know how to defy team orders and think and act selfishly. Hamilton arguably one of the best drivers in F1 history, to beat him in the same equipment required a lot of effort and attention to detail, should not miss any opportunity to score at least 1 point more than him in each race, like how Nico Roseberg did back in the 2016 season.
Mercedes F1 is Lewis Hamilton’s team…
Bottas turned 30 recently and is not able to put his 34 years old teammate, Lewis under any sort of pressure and Lewis is very comfortable with Bottas being his teammate. Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolf called him a ” Sensational wingman” after Last year’s Hungarian GP, though Bottas rejected that notion but his actions show he is still not ready to win big in F1. He gave up his Race win to Lewis during last years Russian GP to help his teammate to solidify his fifth world title.
In last week’s Singapore GP, Bottas was asked by Cheif Strategist James, to deliberately drive slower after his pit stop, so his teammate can secure P4 in the race. When you are fighting for the championship and trailing your teammate by 63 points, no one on the earth will follow team instructions and loose two crucial points.
What Next?
At the beginning of the 2019 season, Bottas made clear that he is done playing supporting roles and want to be more selfish as he quoted “In this sport, if you want to win you need to be selfish, it is that kind of sport, even though it is a team sport you need to think about yourself,” while giving an interview to ESPN.
But unfortunately, he not learned from his mistakes yet. Bottas stands no chance against Hamilton in the same car unless he turns into that b…. mode. F1 fans around the world have higher hopes on the likes of Verstappen, Lando Noris, and Charles Leclerc to dethrone Hamilton rather than Bottas.
Unless he does some talking on track in the remaining races of this season and next season, he will be remembered as “Sensational Wingman” and will be a big disappointment for all Finnish F1 fans.
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