“Probably the Best Time to…”: Valtteri Bottas Gives a Witty Response to Blunt Lewis Hamilton & Co.’s Grief Post Abu Dhabi 2021

Lewis Hamilton picked Valtteri Bottas as his favorite teammate and while the two are now separated with the latter driving for the midfield team Alfa Romeo, the love still exists. The duo probably saw the last of Mercedes’ golden days before luck took a back seat for Silver Arrows. And when that began happening right from the last race of 2021, Valtteri was a first-hand witness but about to depart Brackley. The Finn now looks back at the time, trying to add some humor to the nightmare he lived with the team.

There isn’t a day that goes by when the F1 community, especially the media, doesn’t mention the title fight between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. And here we are at it again. In the F1 Beyond The Grid Podcast, Valtteri Bottas returned to it for the first time as an Alfa driver and the host asked him how exactly he felt leaving the team at the juncture where despite winning the 8th constructors’ title, there was only gloom.

With a hilarious start to his reply, Bottas stated, “Probably the best time to leave.” After he was done laughing, he added, “It [is] also a bit strange. The last time I went to the factory, they paid this huge respect, and I was so thankful for everything they did at the end. When I left, it was like fireworks and all the people lined up in the factory. It was actually quite emotional to walk away from that kind of situation and grief in the team was not maybe the ideal.”

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And while it was an emotionally overwhelming atmosphere for Finn, the grief at the team was also no less post the nightmare they had suffered. But what exactly happened post-race?

Valtteri Bottas remember the atmosphere after Lewis Hamilton’s loss

While we all saw Toto Wolff breaking his headphones and shouting at race director, Michael Masi, the outcome didn’t change despite the number of appeals and backlash. However, Valtteri now gives an insight into what the atmosphere was at the team. He recalled the horrific aftermath of the GP.

Bottas said, “I had a headache the next day. That’s what I remember. The aftermath was painful. Everyone was really suffering. Lewis was down, Toto was down. Even though we won the constructors, but when you lose the driver’s title like that on the last lap it was unreal. Just big disappointment for everybody and took a while to recover for everyone in the team.”

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Do you think it was right of Michael Masi to give the green light to the controversial last-lap showdown?