‘Block Everything’ – Mercedes’ Bottas Shares His Secret To Bouncing Back After A Difficult Race

The Sakhir Grand Prix was not a momentous occasion for Mercedes and particularly, Valtteri Bottas. The pole sitter for the race did not have the greatest of starts and eventually finished the race in P8.

Additionally, his temporary teammate for that weekend, George Russell, outshone him quite a few times as well. But in Hamilton’s absence, one would have imagined the Finn was the favorite to take home the race victory.

Naturally after such a performance, Bottas himself was disappointed with his own display. And he has now revealed how he dealt with the news coverage following the Sakhir GP race.

Valtteri Bottas says he is now ‘full of energy’ ahead of the Abu Dhabi GP

Bottas is quoted as saying, “I’ve learnt from the past that sometimes the best thing to do is then block everything, not to look at anything.”

Despite falling down to P5 in the race start last weekend, Bottas had a very good chance to catch up to Russell. But obviously, the double stack pit stop caused a lot of time delay for him. And in the end, he was just unable to keep the natural race pace going against drivers on fresher tires.

The Mercedes No.77 further said, “So after Sunday, I really haven’t looked at a single headline or a single news article or social media. That’s the way sometimes you have to do it and it worked for me.”

“I feel, again, full of energy for the new weekend and feel that I’m in a place that I can perform, that’s the main thing. I think every driver has their own ways to reset and get back up when you have a bad moment.” concluded Bottas on the topic.

The Finn driver has a chance to win the final race of the 2020 season

Even though Hamilton is back racing alongside him, Bottas just has that extra bit of racing momentum in his arsenal. That could give rise to a better build-up ahead of qualifying, and securing pole position then becomes highly important for him.

Perhaps then the best way for Bottas to arrest this recent slump of form, is with a race win at Abu Dhabi. And in doing so, will reassure Mercedes that they were right to have placed faith in him as their driver for the new season in 2021.