More than just 'The Best Teammate Ever'

Mexico City, 2021.

Nobody had expected him to take pole position. It was, after all, a Red Bull track and had been now for several years - but Valtteri Bottas’ lap was inch-perfect, and perhaps the most surprising of the 2021 season. It was better even than Lewis Hamilton’s, the most successful qualifier of all time, for only the fourth time that year. Bottas is capable of upsets, this certainly being one of them, and actually it is when you least expect him to that he gives us a glimpse of what a driver he can be at his unstoppable peaks.

It does, however, beg the question of why he never mounted a substantial title challenge and only achieved 10 wins in 5 seasons, whilst at the most dominant team ever. Let's analyse F1's greatest understated driver.

Victorious at Sochi in 2017, with ruthless determination written all over his face.

Victorious at Sochi in 2017, with ruthless determination written all over his face.

As the chequered flag dropped for the finale of the 2021 season, Bottas’ half-decade long tenure at Mercedes came to an end. It produced 10 victories, double as many pole positions, 1,235 points and a staggering 67 podiums; the latter at the time of writing being the ninth most of all time.

Whilst Nico Rosberg’s retirement announcement was a shock to the racing world, arguably the decision to hire Valtteri was not - at the time he was a podium regular with unquestionable talent who often picked up the pieces when Mercedes went tumbling. Some had cautiously speculated he may cause 3-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton problems. Claire Williams had tipped him to be a future title-winner.

Accordingly his debut season in 2017 was immense - finishing ahead of Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Verstappen in the standings amidst Hamilton and Vettel’s first of two title fights. He racked up 3 wins, 4 pole positions and 13 podiums, including 5 consecutively between Canada and Hungary and 3 in a row in the season’s denouément; the last of which he took pole, fastest lap and the race win in.

In certain ways 2017 was symbolic of his Mercedes career; he didn’t set the world alight, nor did he mentally destabilise Hamilton, but he quietly let the world know he was no walkover.

In a class of his own under the lights in Abu Dhabi.

In a class of his own under the lights in Abu Dhabi.

In 2018 he began to derail.

It was a season where nothing quite clicked - he finished 2nd an agonising 7 times with bad luck and inconsistency hindering his campaign. He crashed during Q3 at the opening round and could only recover to eighth. Things looked temporarily on the up after his nightmare in Melbourne - he finished second in both Bahrain and China, albeit being slightly soft in his late-race pursuit of Sebastian Vettel in the former, and a fantastic strategy in Baku should have marked his first win of the season. But his almost-characteristic bad luck prevented any further momentum from forming. He hit a singular stray piece of debris along the main straight and his tyre proceeded to detonate.

‘It just blew up on its own…’ he said on the radio, with his voice as deflated as his rear-left Pirelli.

He would have a strong middle section of the season but remain winless as he watched his teammate's greatest title fight take shape. A dark weekend in Sochi where he gave up the win for Hamilton was a major mindset destabiliser, though, and from there on in his season was never the same. A string of four successive 5th place finishes capped off statistically his worst season at Mercedes.

Hamilton won the championship, and Bottas finished fifth.

Desolate after the heartbreak of Baku, 2018.

Desolate after the heartbreak of Baku, 2018.

2019 was unfortunately the only time one of his campaigns would resemble a title fight. He won in 2 of the opening 4 races, including a massive 30 second victory in Australia and redemption in Azerbaijan. But it came apart somewhat; Hamilton would end up winning 8 of the first 12 races and Bottas would only take 2 more victories the whole season. Both wins, in fairness, were as impeccable as his first brace but in the end he lacked the stamina to hinder Hamilton's romp to six World Championships.

2020 was similar in some ways with a few indomitable performances, a few nowhere weekends and an eventually enormous 123-point gap to the Champion. As in 2019 he would start in a strong manner, but yet again he would dwindle - but not implode - out of contention as the season grew on.

The following season was much more consistent, finishing in the top 5 in all but 3 races* that he finished, claiming 11 podiums and his most impressive win in Turkey where he convincingly beat Max Verstappen in the rain. Bottas was sensational at Monza; he was the fastest in qualifying, won the sprint and breezed through an engine penalty to finish on the podium all the way from last place.

He secured best of the rest behind Hamilton and Verstappen easily, beating Perez (his own real competition that year) to third with a few races to spare. He was always destined to be a supporting act to the scintillating title-fight, but he did all that he was required to do with some superb showings along the way.

2021 was excellence that went under the radar - one of Valtteri’s signature traits.

Istanbul, 2021. He doesn't think it's his best win, but I do.

Istanbul, 2021. He doesn't think it's his best win, but I do.

As a driver he is something of an enigma. Bottas’ wheel-to-wheel skills are perhaps the only asset in his armoury that let him down. Valtteri is unfortunately not the first driver that comes to mind when scything through a field is involved, and he finds it difficult to reach that upper echelon his teammate so often can. It is perhaps born out of a tendency to be over-cautious; with the desire to bring home the car overriding the instinct to go for those headline moves.

But that is what separates the great from the good, and Bottas is the latter. Granted, the cars he drove were never renowned for their ability to follow others but then again none of the post-2017 vehicles were particularly tolerant of wake. It's the inconsistency caused by this lack of clinicality that makes him so hard to decipher - his level of performance is something that varies fairly often throughout a season.

He can often be frustrated behind other cars.

He can often be frustrated behind other cars.

Everything else, however, is true champion material. His single-lap pace is exceptional; he’s often able to go toe-to-toe with Lewis Hamilton and sometimes even come out on top.

Despite occasionally going missing, you could always count on him to be there when it mattered during his best seasons. He holds the remarkable record for the most consecutive Q3 appearances (at a staggering 101 out of 101 for Mercedes), and is easily - on the whole - one of the most reliable drivers in the sport. Bottas so rarely loses composure when running at the sharp end, and he is certainly not someone you’d expect to end up in the wall when it gets to the business end of a session.

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Something that would often hold him back would be his tendency to be too hard on himself. The pressure created by the media and fans alone is enough to crack some F1 drivers, and Valtteri himself would only add to that when things weren’t going to plan.

His self-criticality would induce dips in form that were hard to get out of. His training would go so far as to become ‘destructive’ - add to that a divorce (which happened in 2019), and you have a recipe for poor mental health.

Then came the issue of the contracts. At Mercedes he was only ever offered single-year extensions which was another factor that contributed to a lack of self confidence - he was so frustrated at this lack of stability and certainty that he says had he been offered another one-season extension with the Silver Arrows he would have turned it down. Not only was it frustrating but it also augmented how self-critical of himself he became; by only being given one year to perform he put more pressure on himself to deliver poles and wins immediately, since otherwise there was the possibility of being without an F1 seat. He believes this unhealthy mindset precluded him from being patient and letting the results come in their own time. Indeed 2014, his self-proclaimed best season, came when he was confident he would be with Williams for multiple years.

‎F1: Beyond The Grid: Valtteri Bottas on pride, pressure and frustration at Mercedes on Apple Podcasts

His move to Alfa Romeo, whilst on paper a substantial downgrade, could actually benefit him. They are currently in a place not too dissimilar to where he left Williams in 2016; a less intense, multi-year contract environment where we could see Valtteri thrive. Don’t be surprised if we see a few minor miracles from him next season.

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Some believe Bottas was too much of a nice guy to be successful - but he doesn’t regret his team-player approach, nor should be. After all, it helped build the harmonious juggernaut that is the Mercedes F1 team, as well as every team principal’s dream mix of speed and collaboration in their driver pairing. By sharing data, developing their cars together and building trust within the establishment, Bottas became instrumental to their success. Even if he wasn't always giving them on-track reasons to keep him, he was always giving them more off-track reasons to do so.

Indeed he maintains that if he had instigated any tension it would have negatively affected his own focus and performances long-term, as well as jeopardising his future at the team.

So yes, had he been more aggressive he would have certainly won more races and maybe even put together a stronger championship challenge. But that would have meant Valtteri was playing the short game - which doesn't get you very far in Formula 1.

The ultimate team player?

The ultimate team player?

Despite contributing to 5 consecutive World Constructors Championships, he leaves Mercedes with his greatest dream - of becoming an F1 champion - unrealised and perhaps it will be his greatest regret too. The question of whether or not Valtteri Bottas was World Championship material will arguably go unanswered, as had a few things gone differently he could indeed have ended up as one. At least he will remain in the history books as a key contributor of the most dominant run in the seventy-one years of Formula One.

Valtteri was a talent undermined by a display of greatness. And it is precisely this contrast that makes him at times appear worse than he is, when instead it is just the reality of being up against the greatest yardstick in F1. His occasional shine, though, proves that whilst he is not a great, he is nevertheless part of the elite.