Valtteri Bottas has finally broken out

Ever since Valtteri Bottas announced his departure from Mercedes to Sauber for 2022 and beyond the man we once thought we knew has made quite a drastic change in his driving. For years now I have been stuck on Sunday mornings yelling at my TV because of yet another Lewis Hamilton win with Bottas some significant amount behind and Verstappen even further back. Of course there have been exceptions to that with his 10 wins, but why so few? What took so long? Why didn't we get to see this Bottas sooner?

Well I think there are a few reasons why, obviously he wasn't aggressive enough against Lewis and others (or at least he didn't seem very aggressive compared to his teammate's driving). Primarily, he had to be too worried about sticking to what the team wanted, being helping Lewis. Putting myself in his position, going from a midfield team (a very strong one but without serious pressure) to the most dominant team in the sport's history, I can understand why he'd be hesitant to try and be like Nico by putting himself first. I can also imagine the pressure sitting in the seat of the man who'd just beaten Lewis Hamilton in the WDC probably only makes things worse. So with all that pressure it must've gotten to him that he needed to do what the team said if he wanted to keep his seat. However as we unfortunately saw this led to a small amount of wins and an overall poor performance from Valtteri with a lot of criticism along with it. Watching the races you'd be right with everyone agreeing that Bottas wasn't deserving of his seat, but in reality he was delivering consistent podiums and occasional race wins when Hamilton didn't take the top spot. "Why did Mercedes drop him then? Wasn't he doing what they wanted?" Well, yes he was but that was all he did. With the exception of a few small instances, we didn't really get to see the man who we thought was replacing Nico Rosberg. While you'd assume the team wanted a team player, they also wanted someone who could get the job done when Lewis rarely couldn't. And because of his pretty passive driving style over the last 4 years, he didn't have a habit of winning.

On the flip side, welcome to 2021. A world where Kimi Raikkonen is lucky to make it into the points and George Russell is scoring Williams their first points in years. Now that Bottas has been confirmed to be making the move to a Sauber next season, being replaced by Russell, he has completely changed his act. He is more aggressive, he is faster, and he is finally the man we were hoping would be racing Lewis Hamilton. The key moment was at the Dutch Grand Prix this year when Valtteri was sent into the pits to change his tyres, and then instructed not to take the fastest lap so Lewis could get the point. Watching the race, we all expected the usual from him, simply just taking the loss. But somewhere in that mind of his, he thought "You know what? Not this time. They pit me for nothing but to help Lewis and I am sick of being the number two here." And proceeded to set the fastest lap after being told to abort. From that moment on we have seen a very different man. At last he is placing above Lewis and making unbelievable moves to put himself on top, like going from the back of the grid to the podium after denying Lewis pole points in the Sprint Race at Monza. You can clearly see the attempts Mercedes is making to prevent him from outplacing his teammate, like the multiple engine changes and unnecessary pit stops, but now he has the speed and race craft to overcome them.

To end this, I just want to thank that little synapse in Valtteri's brain for making the right decision, because this season has been much more exciting since. And to anyone who read all of that, consider me impressed because I ramble quite a bit. Thanks for reading and let me know if you agree or feel he's still disappointing you.