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 don't even think he has that many sponsors. He won GP3 and then out classed the race drivers in every Friday P1 session he was in for 2012 so I do think he's earned the place.

Would love to see what he could do with an above average car.
 
I'll shush too ... well after saying something I will. The guy has plenty of promise and he's quick enough. A little improvement in race-craft wouldn't go amiss. Okay he only made one* but no excusing rookie errors this season.

*That's according to me, that is. If I recall I was in a minority.:whistle:
 
He shouldn't be, he was the only driver that did a significant amount of overtaking and his mistake didn't involve or take out another driver he has nothing to reproach himself for...

Edit

That post had nothing to do with Jenson ****ing Button by the way just in case someone thought I was pleased that Bottas had an accident causing a safety car giving Button four places, in the race, I'm just saying this because I know how these things can be misconstrued when I post...
 
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Well done on a well earned first podium for Bottas.

He is now officially Finlands leading F1 driver in 2014
 
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quality drive and appears to justify his faith by Williams - what is his contract situation because I would think one of either Ferrari, Mclaren or Mercedes would consider high on their shopping list possibly
 
So no one has had anything to say about Bottas for over 12 months.

Would he have won the British GP on Sunday if he'd been the leading Williams? Probably not but I think it would have been closer.
 
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To me Williams should have split their strategy and pitted Bottas early at the same time as Ferrari pitted. He'd had clean air and been able to use his pace and would probably got track position.

They were never going to beat Mercedes by just following their strategy. Then again maybe that was the idea.
 
RasputinLives It seems Williams are very conservative with their strategy but I do feel it was an opportunity wasted yet again but Valteri needs to move for his own career

He's got limited opportunities at Williams to do well and he's already a few heated discussions about team orders and because of it Williams are very reluctant to impose any again
 
Bottas, who I've championed for a very long time, needs to concentrate on making sure he gets the best of Massa 9 weekends out of 10 before he thinks about his 'future career'. Its noticably close and he should be besting him more often and by a larger margin if he wants to start being thought of as one of the big boys.
 
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