Valtteri Bottas Once Again Hits Out at Mercedes & Lewis Hamilton

Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas was previously partners with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for five years. Having driven for Mercedes, Bottas recently had a lot to say about the car and the way the team goes about putting it together. His claims are in favor of backing-up former partner, Hamilton, as he stated, “It’s just the way it is.”

George Russell replaced Bottas for the season of 2022 as Bottas found his way to Alfa Romeo. It seems his shift took place due to his disagreement with the way the team functioned.

Bottas said, “It is just how a top team works. I feel like Lewis felt the same as well. He sometimes wanted to go in his direction, but the engineers would be like: ‘No, the computer says this’.”

“They have pretty advanced technology and simulation tools that allow it and quite often the computer was right, but not 100 percent.”

He continued, “When I started F1, of course, everything was super exciting and you feel like you want to do this forever. Then for sure, in terms of the love for the sport, at some point, I had a bit of a dip.”

“But now I feel like it’s definitely back. If you asked me today, how long would I want to drive? I’d say forever. I’m really, really enjoying it.”

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Bottas has had a pretty tough time at Mercedes that went beyond the car concepts. He believes that the constant pressure of outshining the record-breaking champion almost had him quit the sport altogether.

The Need to Outshine Lewis Hamilton almost made Bottas quit

Valtteri Bottas made an impression with his performance at Williams and stepped into the role as a driver for Mercedes officially, as Nico Rosberg’s time with the Silver Arrows came to an end.

Lewis Hamilton is a mark of brilliance. With the most amount of wins in his back pocket, completing with Lewis can be pressure some. Bottas has been vocal about his stressors with Mercedes as he only had one year-long contract with the company, which lacked security.

Moreover, he believed the pressure and constant competition led him to lose his love for the sport altogether, as he stopped enjoying the process and wanted to quit at the end of 2018.

Fortunately, the switch has really worked for the fin as he said, “I think [the move] was needed for me. I definitely needed something new, a new environment, new targets, new people around me.”

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The upcoming race for the Singapore Grand Prix is building a lot of buzz around it. With old partners going at each other, and new pressures surfacing, as Lewis struggles to bag a single win this season, the tension continues to build. How indeed will this play out for Mercedes?