Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes Support Driver or Equal Footing With Hamilton?

[Terry Rock]

As the late, great Rodney Dangerfield used to say...
'You guys are tough'.
I personally think Bottas is doing a heck of a job...sans the spin in China.
You can't expect a guy to step into a brand new car...with a brand new team...with limited testing and right off the bat, be 'Nico Rosberg's equivalent in three races.

 

[MSKbeans]

First year in the A-class. They probably thought it would take 6-8 races to get up to speed, then another 3-4 to run whole races leading as pressure is so great.. That way the manufacturers title will be 90% guaranteed. That means more to Mercedes than Drivers championship.
Next year i think a little war will start for number1

 

[Knoxstar]

I watched the Sky Sports coverage including post race! I can't believe many of you did by the responses from some. Valteri had tire pressure issues from the start and pitting early put him in among the lower mid-field. That did him in and the car had massive oversteer issues. How that should relegate him to #2 status is beyond me. Bottas will do it because he has a 1 year deal and is a team guy. Hamilton or Vettel would not do the same willingly.

Also another point is the design of the chassis. It has been common knowledge that while 2 cars in a team are built to the same specs, the driving style or preferences of a car may and will suit one driver more than another unless they like the same thing or the car is built to a compromise. In the Senna or schumacher era for example their teammate was often a firm number 2 such as Irvine. With Hamilton there for several years past and future and Bottas drafted in well after the car was built there is only a limited number of adjustments. As Bottas said post-race, he had used up all the tools or settings and the car was still loose.

Sorry but it seems the British media or Lewis fans are feeding this more than anything for fear of their countryman or favourite driver losing out to Vettel. Do it too soon and Bottas will lose heart and who could blame him if that happened. For Mercedes they are more interested in the manufacturer title and for that they will need Bottas.

 

[neruxxx]

bottas had the pressures wrongly set first thats why it was crap (something about "our pressure meter was faulty") and the ss were crap with a steep falloff, the softs stints he did was amazing and gave enough info to send lewis on that last soft stints too! if you check the overall sector times lewis topped them with bottas second (he was with more fuel during that stint).
now to the main question he DID let pass hamilton two times.

 

[ThatRacingGuy]

Am i the only one who thinks that Bottas is awesome?

 

[M-Bimmer]

No brainer.
But things might be different next season.

 

[Coffer]

There's nothing wrong with team orders besides fans whining about not seeing "fair" battles. If Bottas continues to struggle, he'll have to give way in order to let Hamilton fight Vettel. It's as simple as that - given Vettel's exceptional form and Ferrari finally being within striking distance, surely even they, with all the questionable decisions they've made in the past, must know that they have to take this as seriously as possible.

In time, I'd wager Bottas will have the edge over Hamilton though. Hamilton's been slowly getting worse since 2015, and Bottas tends to need time to accommodate and get into his usual consistent rhythm (losing 9-5 (or 9-6?) to Maldonado in races where they both finished in 2013, then losing with the same score to Massa in 2014 and still being worse for a few races in 2015). I don't think either of them have what it takes to defeat Vettel if Ferrari continue to improve or at least maintain their pace relative to Mercedes though - in his current form, he alone makes up a big chunk of the gap. Merc need Wehrlein or Ocon in one of their cars as soon as possible.

Plus, Bottas wasn't even that bad here - the pressures were Merc's fault, and the car being too oversteery was a result of him trying to do a qualifying setup (and it absolutely worked there). If he focuses on the race as he has in the past, he'll be right up with Lewis in no time, as the car is still way more than good enough to secure regular front row lockouts and thus not punish Bottas for his lack of quali pace relative to one of the best qualifiers of all time.

 

[David Dominguez]

Considering how strong are Ferrari and Vettel now, and how useless is Raikkonen, Mercedes really needs to set Hamilton as 1st driver, and make all strategies around him, if they want to win the DWC.

 

[Celestiale]

Bottas won GP3, Formula renault 2.0 & F3 multiple times beating the likes of Ricciardo in top form.

Those are all "kids series". Not talking down their talent, but those classes are really only education classes with most drivers below 20. Wehrlein won a full fledged racing series with drivers with decades of experience.
It's the same like one footballer (Bottas) shining in U19 and U17 Premier league, while the other footballer (Wehrlein) shining in the Ligue 1 (French league). Obviously quite a big difference.
Anyway, don't wanna drag that too far off topic, we'll see soon enough when Wehrlein gets into a proper car, or one of the drivers you mentioned as teammate

 

[paracletus]

Unless they paid VB the same as LH, he always was the support driver despite what they say.
That doesn't mean that they won't be allowed to fight for GP wins though, simply whoever is quicker in the race will win.

 

[Mr Latte]

Certainly think it's early to write off Bottas, the explanation of his 1st set of tyres being at the wrong pressure doesn't stack up for the whole race performance. Something wasn't right with the setup in affecting the tyre performance as he clearly was struggling for pace.

Vet got beyond the DRS 1 second limit and Bottas was given the chance to close the gap to Vet but couldn't and then let Lewis past on lap 27 and set his fastest lap on lap 33. Yet at times was approx 2 seconds slower than Ham.

While not all, many drivers had their fastest laps @ lap 40.
So tires still had good life long after the "let Ham pass" call took place.

 

[Tr3voRR]

I never saw anything amazing with Bottas... I never got why some people think he's great or special... maybe now they will finaly stop making stuff up in their heads.

 

[Qazdar Karim]

Mercedes needs to put Lewis first while he's still faster than both Ferraris ... they really can't afford waiting for Bottas to get up to speed.

 

[Andrew Harper]

I think Mercedes find themselves in a new type of situation in 2017.

They dominated so much in recent years that all of sudden they find themselves on the back foot and are having to make decisions they would probably not want to make. They had such huge leads that pit stop strategy was almost secondary in their thinking.

I haven't seen the race yet but if asking Bottas to let Lewis past was a simple case of strategy adjustment to try and catch Seb then I can understand why they did it but I'll reserve judgement until I see the highlights.

Bottas is doing a great job so far and yes if he was driving a car with incorrect tyre pressures that would of hindered him greatly. He's more than capable of doing the job and I hope he gets wins this year

 

[Coffer]

the explanation of his 1st set of tyres being at the wrong pressure doesn't stack up for the whole race performance.

Even without taking into account what you said about the setup, there's a very simple possible explanation - he knew he couldn't catch Vettel or fight Hamilton anymore, so he settled for 3rd and took it easy until the line, as his race was over at that point. All he had to do was manage the gap to Kimi and he did just that. He was also on the oldest, worst-performing tyres of the top 4.

 

[Mr Latte]

Even without taking into account what you said about the setup, there's a very simple possible explanation - he knew he couldn't catch Vettel or fight Hamilton anymore, so he settled for 3rd and took it easy until the line, as his race was over at that point. All he had to do was manage the gap to Kimi and he did just that. He was also on the oldest, worst-performing tyres of the top 4.

Kimi had problems too (yet again) but nobody is saying Kimi needs to go.
Clearly we are seeing 2 drivers in 3 races thus far with clear performance advantages over their team-mates.

Ferrari/Mercedes seek a win and a possible 4th place more than a 2nd and 3rd placed finish for obvious reasons. The teams will back more the driver they expect to get them the race wins.

If anything its Kimi on his current underperforming that is a concern for Ferrari. Lets not forget he hasn't been on the podium this year. Both Ham/Vett have each race and Bottas has on 2 out of 3.

 

[hitm4k3r]

Wehrlein makes cars look way better then they are, he is the only one in that respect apart from Alonso, and arguably Vettel in the whole of Formula 1. He could well be one of the best 3 or 4 drivers in F1, we will know if he steps into the right car.
He won the DTM aged 20, which is probably the highest profile touring car racing on the planet. With 20 similar cars, not 2 or 4 like in F1. The same DTM btw, in which other F1 drivers like Ocon or Glock did see no land at all.
Now he comes back after a serious injury, steps into the worst car of the grid, for the first time driving a 17 spec car, and is beating Alonso on pace, and almost getting into the points. If you seriously occupy yourself with him, there can't be any doubt about his class.

I don't know what people find so damn engaging about DTM these days or why they call it high profile. It's one of those racing series that got worse and worse every year and especialy the team orders are something that makes me stop watching it. It's pretty ridicioulous at times and I just hope that Gerhard Berger will make it great again as it was in the early 90's or when they reestablished it in the early 2000s with real characters like Aiello, Schneider, Alzen, Alesi and Hakkinen, not even to mention the big names in the early 90's. Berger certainly understands something about TC having driven ETCC races at tracks like old Brno and not those modern I-can't-get-hurt-arenas so I am pretty confident.

Today DTM is propably the least competetive touring car series compared to stuff like BTCC, V8SC or even your average Clio Cup due to nonesense like DRS, too technical cars that break at every occasion and lose pace at every contact and every freakin' race dictated by rules, team orders and mostly boring tracks with a few interesting ones (Norisring and Zandvoort). And the worst thing about it is the amount of drivers that I consider real characters - Wehrlein being not one of them from my POV, just being one of the guys from a Mercedes casting show. He won the title once in that series and got it served on a silver plate winning two of 18 races ... And his injury caused by his own stupidity that allmost killed him and a co driver fighting for nothing shows how much he is at the level of Alonso or other top drivers. If you really think that the Sauber is the worst car on the grid you should rewatch the race and check the results.

Regarding the race at Bahrain: it was a pretty interesting race to watch with Alonso being the man of the race for me. If you place people like him in bad cars you just notice their real quality. He fought like a maniac and it was a real pleassure to watch how he simply tried every trick in the book to gain an advantage over his opponents. That Bottas didn't have the pace of Hamilton is something that I found a bit wierd watching the race. One lap he was allmost 2 sec slower with Hamilton gaining the most time on the straights wich could be explained by a lack of power - something that even Marc Surer commenting on the race noticed. So from my impression it was more a mechanical issue than a lack of skill. That Mercedes considers team orders after three races says enough. And the same annyoing thing happens with Kimi who got his race screwed by his team. At one point in the race he talked to his team via the radio and it looked as if he had more overview over the sitation and strategy than his team - it was pathetic.

 

[snyperal]

Do you think Rosberg would be classed as the number 1 driver even if he had stayed? I don't, I think Hami is the boss, and until he shits the bed that's where he's staying.

 

[hitm4k3r]

Do you think Rosberg would be classed as the number 1 driver even if he had stayed? I don't, I think Hami is the boss, and until he shits the bed that's where he's staying.

Are you comparing Rosberg with Bottas or how do I have to understand it? The situation is completely different especialy with a driver joining the team without any input to the development of the car. It's pretty natural that the car suits Hamilton better, but Mercedes considering "different approaches" regarding team orders makes Hamilton basicly the boss. Even the statement itself is like a punch in the face of Bottas. Looking back throughout the years, I know when I smell a Number 1 and a Number 2 driver. To think that they don't have the order set would be a bit naive from my perspective.

 

[Matt Orr]

We knew he was going to be Mercedes' #2 driver, and he IS Mercedes' #2 driver. But at the same time, Rosberg was the #2 as well...

The only thing that should be taken from the 1 year contract is how much Mercedes loves Pascal but needs to make sure he's properly ready.

There is a pretty big difference though between #2 driver and "The Barichello of the team"... Barichello was of course the #2 to Schumi, but Ferrari in particular at the time had the sole idea that "Schumacher wins regardless" as they so vividly displayed multiple times. Mercedes hasn't employed team orders in that type, and I don't think they will considering they were more than willing to allow Hamilton and Rosberg to race even though they had a habit of screwing one another. (which we probably won't / wouldn't see this year given the car changes)

I don't think for a moment Mercedes wouldn't have told Hamilton to move if the situation in Bahrain were reversed. The real question should be would they have moved him over if the Australia situation was reversed - or would Hamilton simply go off the reservation and do it himself regardless...

I'm not sure though the idea that he is so far behind I've heard from some is accurate though. Bottas could have (would have if the car wasn't silver) certainly challenged Hamilton harder at the end in Australia, besides a spin under the SC - embarrassing certainly, but everyone has that derp moment - recovered well in China, and did get the pole in Bahrain but was ultimately hindered by some minor issues.

Considering he was somewhat hastily added to a new team after years of life at the comparatively low profile position he had at Williams, I would say that's pretty damn impressive. He isn't that far off, he just needs to put the pieces together and get comfortable - which I think he will do. I expect Bottas to get to the same level Nico was last year once he's fully in step with the way the team works - I don't expect him to beat Hamilton regularly, but I also think Hamilton will preform better over the year than in past years.

IMO Hamilton is a driver who really needs the mental aspect of things to work right for him. I don't think Nico beat him last year, but rather Hamilton beat himself playing these silly games / not paying attention that he has always done. He knew he could beat Nico and he got too slack while Nico started to improve / had the motivation of Hamilton being... Hamilton. Add in some of the "luck" things that happen in racing and ebb and flow and Nico had him at the end of the year.

With Ferrari and Vettel in particular being contenders I think Hamilton will stay focused in.