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?
 
love the title name LOL

Episode 1 Applause GIF by Friends
 
Bottas's statement basically translates as:

"Look, there is as much chance of me being able to plat fog as there is me being in a Mercedes seat next year therefore this is my final chance of anything like being able to have even the slimmest chance of a title shot. Even if I stand no realistic chance of winning it I will do my level best to provide zero help to my team mate to ensure he has less chance of winning it as well. Of course, that being said, I will do just enough so that the team doesn't sack me mid season and replace me with George Russell"
 
you can be selfish all you want. it doesn't make you quicker. i get that he teammate with 1 of 3 greatest drivers of last 40 yrs. since every race became televised

but bottas is id call a cup team in football. in 1 off race with circuit he likes. he can be fantastic & take the charge to Lewis Hamilton. isnt consistent enough over a season. but thats before we get to end of last season which was arguably worse than 2018. which makes it astonishing he is still in that car.
Portimao - where Lewis was so comfortable he nearly started reading a book to stave off boredom.

Turkey - where Lewis is putting in 1 of the drives of his career. bottas is too busy imitating kylie minogue

Bahrain - every start goes backwards. which wouldnt be so bad unless its compounded by the fact. bottas is seemingly terrified of overtaking

but for me Sakhir was the point of no return. a driver whose was on debut at short notice in a ill fitting mercedes. outclassing bottas, performing 1 of overtakes of the season & for huge bad luck wins the race on debut. it was highly likely mind games but Russell was spot on with the comments on the Thursday "if situation was reversed & someone at short notice drove the other williams & beat me. id be very disappointed considering i have 3 years of experience"
 
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They would be better replacing him with Jack Russell!

Growing up, as a Gloucester fan, he was a cricketing icon and he's a very good artist these days.

Don't know what he's like driving cars though?
 
Growing up, as a Gloucester fan, he was a cricketing icon and he's a very good artist these days.

Don't know what he's like driving cars though?
Robert Charles Russell nicknamed Jack Russell apparently a while back is not an officilasy recognised dog breed. The man did love his painting but was also a very private man
 
i understand why he has to defend bottas. but bottas hasnt beaten Lewis to a race win since November 2019. his 2 race wins last season were because of Lewis grid penalties & Bottas was on pole

it wouldn't be so bad if bottas was like irvine or Barrichello but he brings it on himself. by blaming everything but himself for his underperformance. like Bahrain blaming the pit crew for ruining his race.
 
That's a good point - Hamilton had a slow pitstop at Imola, which cost him probably the lead, and put him in the position of having to chase back through the traffic - did we hear him blaming the pit crew for his final result?
 
I think Russell let himself down a bit with his behaviour this weekend.

Latifi showed a glimpse that he may push Russell a bit harder this season so it will be interesting to see how Russell responds to this weekend.
 
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