Written by Hafiz Akbar, Edited by Hazel Alagappan
Valtteri Bottas is very much looking forward to having his seat in the championship team, Mercedes, secured for next year. As the Finn expects the team to start discussions about a renewal ‘in the near future’.
Perhaps it is the light at the end of the tunnel, as Bottas is currently on a string of bad luck heading into the French GP. If this goes ahead, then surely it is a sign the team is putting a lot of faith in the Finnish driver.
Bottas fared rather abysmally in the Azerbaijan GP last week. He struggled to find any pace whatsoever in his W12 and had great difficulty getting past the opposition. He ended up twelfth on the grid. Making it a nil race for Mercedes as his teammate, Lewis Hamilton locked up coming into turn one after the restart, arguably losing him(Hamilton) the race.
Bottas entered the Formula One(F1) scene back in 2013, driving for Williams F1 Team. In the legendary British team, the Finn drove beside polarising figure, and former F1 driver, Pastor Maldonado and very briefly world champion, Felipe Massa. He achieved a high finish of 4th in the Drivers’ Championship. Before being signed as the replacement of the World Champion, Nico Rosberg who had just announced his shock retirement from the sport.
Bottas explained,“I am still enjoying Formula One, of course, very much and racing at the front, and I really love it and I still enjoy it as much as I did, for example in my first year with Mercedes, no doubt.
“If I look at the bigger picture, for sure I still have a good few years in me. I feel like year on year I keep improving on certain areas and keep getting better. I’m quite far from the oldest drivers on the grid so, in theory, I still have time, but you just don’t know what the future holds. I take it weekend by weekend and see what comes.”
His seven time world champion teammate, Lewis Hamilton is also out of contract by the end of this year. And after two abysmal races on street circuits (Monaco and Baku), that left team principal Toto Wolff disappointed, perhaps it’s not the best time to talk about driver lineups.
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