Current Valtteri Bottas

…….and finally Williams confirm that Valtteri Bottas will be in the race seat for the 2013 season. As I’m seen on here as his biggest fan I thought I better get an article written and a thread started for the lad.

Born 28th August 1989 in Nastola Finland he currently resides in Oxford. His single seater career started in 2007 with a 3rd place in the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series, he followed that up in 2008 by winning the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series and the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup series. In 2009 he stepped up to the Formula 3 Euroseries coming 3rd but winning the Maters of Formula 3 one off race a feat he was to repeat in 2010. 2011 was the year he suddenly jumped to everyones attention when he cruised to the GP3 championship and spent the whole season as Williams test driver impressing big time in the 2011 Abu Dhabi young drivers test by setting pretty competitive times in a car which wasn’t viewed as very quick. He was so impressive he put himself in the running for the Williams F1 seat but in the end the team went with bringing in the funds of Bruno Senna but satisfied Bottas with a contract which made sure he got plenty of running in the car on a Friday morning something that he grabbed hold of with both hands.

Not running in any other series meant Valtteri was concentrating completely on his job as Williams and a lot of essential team members at Williams have come out and said how much help he has been at setting up the car, which seeing as the Williams was a far better car this year can only be seen as a plus for him. A year doing test stuff must have been frustrating but in the long run I actually think it might be a big plus for him as he’s had a whole season of watching and learning how a technical team like Williams work and will certainly have a lot more knowledge of set up and how an F1 team works than the majority of rookies coming in. Of course its helped even more that he’s impressed in his Friday morning sessions, keeping pace with Maldonado on nearly every occasion and beating him on a fair few. This has of course lead to complaints from Bruno Senna about how he is not as quick due to not getting enough time but I can twist that round on itself because Bottas had even less time yet seemed to be able to jump in the car and be on the pace. What can he do with a full weekend in the cockpit? I guess we’ll see.

So we’ve seen he has pace, we’re told he had technical know how, and his junior career shows he knows how to win so it all looks good but having said that a lot of drivers have looked good and not been able to translate it so the proof is in the pudding as they say. So why have I championed him so much? Well to me Williams are a big team and should act like a big team. They got their Renault engines back and showed they can still design a car and produced a race winning one for 2012 and I can’t help but feel if their driver selection had been more about talent than funds we’d have seen them finish a lot higher up in the championship. Maldonado is a winner, he has pace, he just needs to calm down. I couldn’t say the same for Senna, so when you see a talented youngster who is obviously quick but has no financial backing whatsoever I can’t help but root for Williams to take a gamble on bringing him in.

So now we know he’ll get his shot and we’ll see whether he can match the faith shown in him. Lets also hope that Williams give him a car to show us he has talent. The second rookie on the grid for next year and this is the first rookie for a while that’s come in on talent with very little financial backing something I think Formula 1 could do with more of.

So before he turns a wheel what do we thing? The next flying Finn or the worst Scandinavian since Magnuersen?
 
I've been of the belief for a while now that it's not Bottas ability that's stopping him be up there with the current best but his belief in his abilities. He just needs a bit of confidence I reckon. Maybe a good psychological coach or something.
 
I dont believe so, because F1 for the most part is instinctive you have to make decisions yourself. If you hesitate you lose out & put yourself in danger with half hearted move. I had high hopes of bottas & Silverstone was a great defence but he is seemingly fallen in to kimi territory last yr albeit through some bad luck & that hamilton/vettel are just on a different level
 
Bottas is semingly a nice guy but he doesn't have that extra something that makes a good driver a great driver in my opinion. I can't see him winning a championship, I seriously don't think he has it in him to win one sadly.
 
Do both drivers get "party mode" and if so do they get it at the same races Galahad ?

Obviously I can't answer that, but this chart shows the laptime gain from Q2 to Q3 so far this season. The coloured bar is the mean gain (or loss) - the error bars show the maximum and minimum for individual races.

2018_Party.jpg


Bottas has averaged the biggest improvement in the field, at 0.663s against 0.586s for Hamilton. Ricciardo is at 0.655s despite the apparent lack of a "party mode" - draw your own conclusions.
 
I hope the butler retires. One lacklustre performance after the other and when he’s actually got the pace he surrenders his position. What a wimp.
 
so based on back half of 2017 & 2018. when is ocon seat fitting

Wolff sets target for Bottas to keep Mercedes seat

Valtteri Bottas must perform at the same level as Lewis Hamilton this season if he is going to keep his race seat at Mercedes for 2020, says team boss Toto Wolff. "Valtteri knows exactly where he needs to be next year, He needs to have all the bad luck gone and perform on a level with Lewis. that is what is needed for the 2020 year. He knows very well that, and he has that in him."
 
I reckon the F1 world will have forgotten about Ocon by about June and all the talk will be of George Russell moving into the seat. F1 world and fans are very fickle when something is not slapping them in the face every other weekend.
 
We had all forgotten about Daniel Kvyat, but like a genital wart he keeps coming back.

Note: the writer of this post has never had genital warts nor does he know if they are something which are recurring. The analogy has been used simply for comedic effect, honest!
 
I reckon the F1 world will have forgotten about Ocon by about June and all the talk will be of George Russell moving into the seat. F1 world and fans are very fickle when something is not slapping them in the face every other weekend.

that could be the interesting part because i wouldnt put past Wolff to have guaranteed ocon a 2020 seat without telling bottas. as he seemed a bit calm about leaving

but i could see a leclerc dejavu with russell
 
Or Lando Norris could prove to be an ace in a crap car after McLaren so they jump in on him. Or Mick Schumacher walks F2 and Merc can't resist. Or Red Bull / Renault turns out to be useless and Verstappen / Ricciardo jumps ship.

Don't get me wrong I'm a massive Ocon fan but drivers not driving in anything are very quickly forgotten. I'm sure if we flip back 12 months you'll find various articles on how Wehrlein would take year out and be a 'shoe in' for Bottas seat in 2019.
 
We had all forgotten about Daniel Kvyat, but like a genital wart he keeps coming back.

Note: the writer of this post has never had genital warts nor does he know if they are something which are recurring. The analogy has been used simply for comedic effect, honest!
He's a lot better than most give hime credit for.
 
There is still a vacant seat at Renault in 2020 so it will be interesting to see if Bottas/ Ocon will be the one replacing Hulkenburg

Also the Sauber team is run by Bottas/ Hulkenberg's old boss so someone might want to tell Kimi to retire next season if Giovinazzi starts thrashing him

For Bottas to keep his seat - he's got to stay ahead of Le Clerc and Verstappen because I think Mercedes might not win the constructors this season if Valtteri drops like a stone again
 
I think all Bottas has to do to keep his seat is not upset Hamilton and remind Toto about the juicy signing on bonus he'd get if he resigned him.
 
Ricciardo has a two year contract so I assume it has a clause which would mean Mercedes or Ferrari would offer a lot of money to break
 
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