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?
 
To "do a Mika" his first race win needs to be fixed between the TP's of various teams and his team mate. I guessing Mercedes don't have much of a reserve of good will with the other teams.
 
Well.. I was thinking more along the lines of after Jerez '97, the floodgates opened for Mika & he always seemed to be winning (yes, I appreciate that he had certain advantages in terms of chassis & teammate). It would be preferable to the "Heikki syndrome", where he only managed to win 1 race, and that was essentially served up on a plate for him.

Let the record show that I don't think it is likely...but I would like to see him suddenly become a relentless Finnish Winning Machine, nevertheless.
 
Well, he hasnt won a race yet, so he has little to lose!!

My personal view (unfounded, almost certainly wrong!!) is that he will be well beaten. I have seen little to convince me that he has enough star quality to beat Lewis, and that is possibly why he was bought on board. Additionally, with the rule changes next season, there are no guarantees regarding car performance, and if things are close, I would feel that Lewis' advantage will be even greater.

In Summary, better than a Webber, not quite as good as a Rosberg

My main hope though is that I am wrong, and we have a good battle season long, and that his performance leads to a test of the managements capabilities.
 
To be honest, if the Merc is as dominant as the last 3 years, the minimum for Bottas would be 2nd in the WDC, and a minimum of 90% of Hamilton's points!

Why? Rosberg has been much further away than 10% and he never got fired.

2016 LH 380p NR 385p Difference 1.2%
2015 LH 381p NR 322p Difference 15.4%
2014 LH 384p NR 317p Difference 17.4%
2013 LH 189p NR 171p Difference 9.5%
 
I say top 5 because you'd expect the Red Bull drivers, Alonso and Vettel to be Hamilton's main challengers now anything more than that would be very good to excellent for him
 
Greenlantern101

After I posted, I thought back and felt that 90% was a little optimistic (If LH won every race, with VB second, he would only have a little less than 75% of the points...)

That being said, if VB is to be a long term prospect at Mercedes, he has to be there to take wins. If other cars are on a level with the Mercedes, he needs to be able to take points off them to help LH (if we assume that LH will be ahead) in the championship.

Ideally, VB will be pushing and beating LH on occasions!
 
For Valterri to stay at Mercedes he has to show he has potential to be a front runner and race winner

He may surprise a few people which would be a good thing because a competitive teammate for Hamilton who can push him makes Hamilton needing to perform at a higher level
 
I think Hamilton will make sure he first finishes ahead of Vettel before worrying about Bottas

Bottas and Vettel are on the rubbered in side and Hamilton is on the dirty side. Vettel spent an awful lot of time doing practice starts, but it is only a short drive to the first corner.

It looked like on the long runs Ferrari may have a good chance of outlasting the Mercedes drivers again with Red Bull also able to go a long way. All other things being equal Hamilton could finish up behind one Ferrari, two Red Bulls and one Mercedes for the last (third?) stint.
 
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