< /figure>
It's official: Valtteri Bottas is now definitively Lewis Hamilton's wingman.
In fact, we should all have a lot of respect for the career that Valtteri Bottas has won for himself in motorsport. In F3, the sauna enthusiast was actually already driven away by the late teammate Bianchi. Usually that's not the best prelude to a glorious F1 stint. But VB77 is currently already in its ninth F1 season and has only just won nine races.
Valtteri played it well. For top team ART, he won the GP3 title in 2011. Then came the real masterstroke. Rather than run the risk of drowning in the GP2 field, Bottas was able to secure a race seat with the team for 2013 through a test contract with Williams. With the Grove team, he was generally narrowly ahead of teammates Maldonado and Massa. and that resulted in a promotion to top team Mercedes in 2017.
Despite Bottas being a great guy, he eventually ran into the limitations of his talent at Mercedes. Bottas is of course a very good driver, but he has no chance against the outside category that Lewis Hamilton forms. There is nothing wrong with that at all. But it was a bit of a shame for us fans.
We already knew in recent years prior to the season that Bottas would take a few races and then 'fuck you'. would say to his haters. But we also knew that Hamilton had the title back in his hands at the end of the stage. At one point, Bottas' outspoken title aspirations therefore became a bit ludicrous. As it was in the past with David Coulthard and Rubens Barrichello. You can't blame those guys for having ambitions and taking a seat on a top team. But you also know it's going to be another boring year.
Bottas himself, however, has been outraged several times in the past when he was attributed the role of wingman. In 2018 you could still show understanding for that. After all, Nico Rosberg also won the title in 2016 after being defeated by Hamilton for two years. However, we are now a few years further and they no longer bother at Mercedes that BOT is number two. Team boss Toto Wolff has this to say about it:
The chances of Valtteri winning the championship are very slim compared to Lewis, who is in this very close fight. We have discussed the matter with Bottas. As difficult as it is for a driver to hear, this season we cannot afford to have our drivers take points from each other.
Toto Wolff, hopes Lewis does not take points from Valtteri's'or'8230; oh wait
Wolff even suggests that if Valtteri plays the team game nicely, there might still be a contract extension for him:
That is just one of the factors, but I'm happy with this help. I just love to see teamwork.
Toto Wolff, has long signed a deal with George Russell
According to this. Do you think Valtteri is so great that he deserved better? Or should VB77 be happy with the chance he had? Let us know, in the comments!