Valtteri Bottas’ metamorphosis from an extremely professional, corporate-friendly and inoffensive personality to one of the funniest and most colourful characters on the grid over his time at Sauber has been a real joy to behold.
Although he is no longer competing for podiums or victories – or even for points these days – Bottas seems to have been liberated without the pressures of the front of the field weighing upon him.It’s easy to forget that Bottas is a multiple grand prix winner, having raced toe-to-toe with the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc and beaten them on his day. Bottas is clearly capable of being a very fast Formula 1 driver, but there’s only so much a driver can do when they are in the slowest car in the field.
Despite his Sauber giving him very little to work with, Bottas has quietly been one of the most consistent performers of the season so far. It’s hard to pick out a weekend of his 14 so far that could be considered ‘bad’ and he has clearly been the superior of the two drivers in his team over the first half of the season.
Bottas has managed to escape Q1 almost half of the time this season – no small achievement in his car – and even reached the top ten shootout in China. Although he’s so far been unable to convert any of those top 15 starts into a point yet, it’s been hard to think of a genuine opportunity to do so that he’s let go begging. With reliability rates so historically high at present, there simply aren’t the chances to snipe a point or two like there would have been in years gone by.
Valtteri Bottas
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 12 (x2) | 17 |
| GP finish | 13 (x2) | 19 |
| Points | 0 | |
He recorded a genuine top ten finish in China by being classified in an impressive ninth place – but the fact that was a sprint race meant he missed out on a first point by a single position. In the grand prix, he was in contention for an outside hope of a top ten, only for his power unit to let him down in frustrating fashion.
Heading into the summer break in Belgium, Bottas had another solid weekend. Benefiting from the full suite of his team’s upgrades once more, he reached Q2 and got a decent start to move ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. Although finishing 15th was nothing to scream about, Bottas had finished ahead of multiple cars that had little excuse to lose to a Sauber over a race without any Safety Car interruptions.
But while that weekend at Spa was an example of Bottas putting in the hard graft for little reward, he hasn’t quite seemed able to tap into that higher level as often as he would want. More often than not, a Bottas performance is typically solid – but unspectacular. While he has not made many major errors of note throughout the season, it’s also true that the pressure is not the same when the car is not expected to be fighting for points to begin with.
It’s easy to overlook that Bottas is still one of the safer pairs of hands on the grid. But when a team is 14 rounds into a championship and staring at the possibility of going an entire season without scoring, they need something more than just ‘safe’ from their most experienced driver to turn things around.
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RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
9th August 2024, 8:33
Bottas is an enigma to me – and I suspect that’s the way he likes it.
During his Mercedes years he was clearly super competent – look at how the RBR number 2 drivers have fared compared to him. But he wanted to leave Mercedes to avoid the pressure and forge his own path – which remains understandable. When the pressure is self imposed such as in 2022, when he was a big name in a small team or this season, when there are good drives available, he’s right on it. He’s been very impressive this campaign. However, when there’s little to play for like last year he can go missing.
I’m surprised he didn’t end up at Williams or Mercedes. He’s dependable, quick and would be a strong benchmark for either Alex or George. However, his desire to be aesthetically interesting is at odds to those teams image. It reminds me of DC’s similar revolt post McLaren where he stopped shaving and dying his hair. I fear that is to Bottas’ detriment. On pace, on a good day he’s still a top midfielder for me. I hope Audi takes him on, he’s far too good to lose.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th August 2024, 13:49
I don’t think he ‘wanted’ to leave Mercedes, but rather was forced to leave to make way for Russell.
Moi
9th August 2024, 14:43
Well, no. He was pushed out because Mercedes wanted a young driver with WDC potential for when Hamilton would leave/retire. A wise move, as it turned out.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
9th August 2024, 16:00
Obviously Russell was going to replace him but from his numerous interviews since, particularly the beyond the grid with Tom Clarkson, it was very clear that his motivation and mental health were at risk there. He clearly believed that he had proven everything he could and wouldn’t beat Lewis over the course of a championship. Even in DTS it was fairly clear that it was a mutual end to the partnership.
Moi
9th August 2024, 17:57
It is called a face saving exit.
Good for both parties to uphold that narrative, but no F1 driver is going to leave a WDC-winning car for a backmarker team if they have any say in it.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
9th August 2024, 18:20
Villeneuve did.
Projects come to an end there doesn’t have to be a villain on one side or the other. It was clear that he was going to be replaced from 2019, with constant speculation that Ocon would get the drive before Russell was even considered. That clearly impacted Valterri’s mindset and he was eager for a new challenge. I don’t think it’s as mutually exclusive as you’re making out.
Jere (@jerejj)
10th August 2024, 6:56
@rbalonso I don’t recall the speculation about Ocon in 2019 was constant & definitely not serious in any case. Otherwise, he would’ve indeed replaced Bottas.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
10th August 2024, 8:54
https://www.gptoday.com/details/view/669286/Mercedes_have_to_replace_Bottas_with_Ocon/
https://www.essentiallysports.com/esteban-ocon-reveals-he-was-very-close-to-replacing-valtteri-bottas-at-mercedes-f1-for-2020/
https://www.grandprix247.com/2019/07/12/lehto-i-doubt-ocon-will-replace-bottas-at-mercedes/
https://www.racefans.net/2019/08/04/ocon-and-bottas-both-deserve-2020-seat-in-a-way-wolff/
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
10th August 2024, 8:57
I’ve posted links so my comment is under moderation but there’s at least 4 articles from that time including Ocon stating that he was in the frame. Google ‘ocon replace Bottas’ and there’s lots of articles. Surer, Lehto have their say on it (I’m not sure why either) but twitter was awash with the rumour at the time.
Jmlabareda
9th August 2024, 8:37
In my humble opinion, in the midfield it’s better to have a driver with highs and lows like Tsunoda than a driver with no highs and no lows like Bottas. Seems to me that Valtteri would have driven that RB to 11th or 12th week in week out, and that would still be nul points.
The main achievement of Bottas this year has been qualifying (he’s always been great at it) but more should be required to earn this position in a ranking.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
9th August 2024, 9:20
But bottas likely will have got points on two occations in the worst car this season if not for bad luck. Examples being Bahrain where his poor performing team mate was 11th and he had a very damaged car from first lap damage. Then as described in the article, he was also strong in China. It is pretty clear that if he was in the RB, he would not have no points as that is a far better car than what he has had this year.
anon
9th August 2024, 10:05
In one race he would have scored points if it wasn’t for a mega slow pit stop. In another race, he might have been in points without another slow stop. Unfortunately I don’t remember which races these were. Without these mistakes by the team, he would have a couple of points. The ridiculously slow pit stops can’t be labelled as bad luck but Bottas is not in any way to blame for those either.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th August 2024, 2:30
Yes, I haven’t been following closely those backmarker cars, but I would go as far as labelling slow pit stops as bad luck, since they’re not under a driver’s control, they got unlucky the team made a mistake.
A lot of people blamed verstappen for the monza 2021 crash with hamilton, forgetting that hamilton had no business being that close to verstappen, if not for a slow pit stop.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th August 2024, 2:31
Although in sauber’s case, since slow pit stops were the norm early season as they had some kind of issue they couldn’t rapidly solve, I guess you’re right it’s not bad luck, more of a team feature.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
9th August 2024, 17:36
But do we know that Tsunoda has higher highs than Bottas, or is he just in a superior car? Bottas’ performances against Hamilton and Tsunoda’s against Gasly would suggest the latter, and the fact that Bottas has increased his advantage over Zhou suggests he is not in decline. I think Bottas is still top eight for fastest drivers in F1, but agree with this placing as he too is inconsistent and has random races where he is nowhere, often blaming damage but it happens so often that I think maybe he just finds it harder to drive damaged cars than most drivers.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th August 2024, 2:02
This is a good point, I’m not saying bottas doesn’t have any highs, but if a driver in a top car is consistently 6th and another driver sometimes comes 3rd and most of the times 8th-9th, when such drivers are in a midfield car you would take the second, cause coming 11th, 12th doesn’t matter, only the exceptional performances required to score points.
Alesici
9th August 2024, 12:41
In the absence of a representative official points system, I turn to the Reddit Formula 1.5 standings to gauge how successful the bottom half of the field have fared. For Bottas, it’s not a good picture, with significantly less points than Zhou, and less than a third of the points of the two VCARB driver’s average score.
In both scoring systems, it pays to be a bit up and down rather than consistently mediocre.
MichaelN
9th August 2024, 13:36
Yeah, a few good results can be just what a team like this needs. Problem is of course that it takes quite a bit of luck for those good performances to come at a time when there’s an opportunity to score points.
Bottas’ role is odd. It doesn’t seem Audi has any interest in doing anything with this team until 2026 so his experience counts for little in these ‘bridge years’. They also don’t seem to want him to stick around, nor Zhou for that matter. As such, I doubt anyone really cares about the results. Bottas can drive the car cleanly, which will keep costs down, and keep them their slot on the grid. Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be any ambition at this team.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
9th August 2024, 13:52
To be fair to Bottas he’s not in an RB. He’s in the only team that haven’t scored any points. Far be it from me to question the integrity of any championship that Fernando is on top of, but the 1.5 standings are obviously limited. Bottas has beaten Zhou 7-4 but those standings heavily favour the 11th Zhou got in the opener, where Bottas lost a minute in the pits but had qualified 3 places ahead. In Spain, the team tried an alternative strategy in the vague hope of points which, predictably, didn’t work out costing him more points to Zhou. In reality, the hope of a lot of these strategies when the car is this poor is to fall into the top ten by doing something different – so ranking the gambles isn’t particularly helpful as in the real world there was nothing to lose by finishing 16th rather than 13th in a vague hope for 10th.
Alesici
9th August 2024, 14:44
Fairly well argued points, but its wrong for you to criticise the Formula 1.5 points system for accurately reflecting the result of strategic gambles that had been strongly encouraged by the distorting official points system. The official points system should reflect everyone’s finishing position, not just half of the field’s. Then everyone would always fight to maximise every result.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
9th August 2024, 15:56
Personally, I’m not in favour of points for every position. I wouldn’t mind them being extended to 12th given modern reliability but I think they should be earned not merely a finishing token. I like the idea that a midfielder can take a strategic gamble precisely because they have nothing to lose. I think the sport should reward the occasional exceptional performance rather than a culmination of solid drives. I also like that midfield teams tend to be able to fight to the last race and a great finale can jump multiple positions in the standings.
My fear with points down to 20th is that strategy would become more conservative and that test runs which aid car development won’t be taken as there more to lose in the short term. Although I do understand there are some benefits, like possibly racing harder in the last 10 laps for 14th, but think it would be offset by fairly safe strategy to begin with.
Simple
9th August 2024, 12:46
Wasn’t it Zhou who placed P9 in the Chinese GP sprint, not Bottas? Bottas was P12
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th August 2024, 2:33
Ohh, you’re right, I’m surprised it’s not been corrected by now.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
9th August 2024, 14:55
In terms of speed he gets the maximum out of that hopeless piece of junk. Bottas’ speed was never his problem though. His main problem was always that he’s more of a driver than a racer. You wouldn’t bet on him in combat against almost anyone on the grid currently. You def. Wouldn’t bet on him to do the dame service Perez did for Max in abu dhabi 2021. So even if Sauber improve their car enough to be able to really take the fight to the midfield I’m not sure with his particular set of skills he’s really the right guy for the job. But they’ll probably keep him since Zhou is worse at most things so they might not have a choice. But if I had a choice I’d probably bring Magnussen over. Nowhere near as fast bit a real fighter. Or Ricciardo/Lawson whichever becomes available. Nothing against Bottas but he’s too nice for the midfield skirmishes.
anon
9th August 2024, 15:19
Yes, wheel-to-wheel racing is definitely one of his weaknesses, arguably the biggest one. He seems too risk-avoidant to the 2020s F1. But I think he gets too much criticism for that. After all, he fared pretty well in Williams and had a reputation of being a great defender. And I think he has been a better overtaker this season than in a long time. I didn’t find any stats from this season but I have a feeling he would be decently ranked when taking into account his good qualifying record and the slowest car. All in all, I wouldn’t conclude Bottas is incapable of fighting in the midfield even if wheel-to-wheel racing is not a strength of his.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
9th August 2024, 20:26
His Williams reputation that you speak of had a clear reason behind it: When he was at Williams the Williams was a rocket ship in a straight line. Otherwise where did his skills disappear later on?
You might be right about this year though can’t be sure without clear stats.
Whatever the case it’s clear it’s a weakness of his, so someone else might be better for them to fight in the midfield
BLS (@brightlampshade)
10th August 2024, 11:37
Bottas’ season feels like a season without any real highs or lows. Hard to really remember much about it to be honest!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th August 2024, 2:36
Yes, true, and as mentioned with a car so bad that you need magic to score a point, that might be a weakness in that particular situation.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th August 2024, 2:37
You would probably need a ricciardo, someone who can’t always perform, but when he does he can do impressive things, such as monza 2021, mexico 2023, miami 2024 sprint, and score those few points that might be possible with a sauber across the season.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
11th August 2024, 9:34
@esploratore1
The thing is though that Ricciardo also couldn’t have scored points if the team screw up with pit stops or the car had mechanical issues.
Both of these as well as first lap damage in Bahrain are basically what stopped Bottas himself getting points on two occasions. I wouldn’t say his highs are that amazing, but he has had some more impressive performances this season. Given Zhou was P11 in Bahrain, and Bottas got damage at the start as well as a ridiculous pit stop, I would argue he would have comfortably been P10 or even P9.
I think it was just pure coincidence and bad luck that his best performance of the year where he was in Q3 in china, overtook Hulkenberg at the start and was running in the points on merit only to have his only DNF certainly masks his high points this year. He probably has missed out on 3 or 4 points, which given Albon only has 4 points in a far better car should sort of make people question how well Albon has been doing. Bottas this year in my view has been a little better than him.