Is Valterri Bottas Any Good?
“It’s a nice moment to thank my critics. To whom it may concern, fuck you.”
Those were the celebratory words from Valterri Bottas following his second win of the 2020 Formula One season in Sochi last Sunday. And, as one of Bottas’ critics, I do not accept his profane riposte to my grievances.
This isn’t the first time the Finn has used this line following a race win. The 2019 Australian Grand Prix, the first of that season, saw Bottas comfortably win out ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.
It was here that Bottas had first employed such a remark for the “haters.”
He clearly enjoyed the moment, because he later showed up at the paddock in a t-shirt that depicted the line in that classic F1 radio font, you know the one.
This kind of radio message is not one that viewers are used to hearing. The tradition is usually the clichéd, yet still perfectly acceptable, yells of cheering followed by the #classytouch of thanking the team for their “efforts.” In fact, over the last several years, the audience has gotten all too used to hearing the words “get in there, Lewis!” in the moments following the chequered flag.
But just what leg does Bottas have to stand on when making such a remark to a world wide viewership?
Frankly, he doesn’t have one. In his 72nd race for the Mercedes team, this was his ninth victory. NINE. Max Verstappen has eight race wins in the same time frame (and nine total).
Verstappen’s Red Bull has never been as consistently as quick or as dominant as the Mercedes. Ok, sure, fine. Comparing two drivers in different machinery, one of those drivers being one of the most talented in their generation, isn’t going to lead to the most conclusive results.
However, they are only really being compared because it has been the Dutchman that Bottas has been racing all season long, not the man that he should really be compared to. Hamilton this week celebrates his eighth anniversary of the day he announced he was moving from McLaren to Mercedes.
In the seasons since, there have been very few records that the Briton has yet to break. The last big one left is surpassing Michael Schumacher’s record for most Grand Prix wins, 91. He would have surely equaled that record at Sochi but for a bizarre self-inflicted mistake cost him a 10-second penalty in the pit-lane and ruined any chance he had of winning the race.
So, the context of Bottas’ ninth ever race win, the one he decided he needed to directly address his critics, was during a victory he had essentially won by the two sweetest words in the English language. De. Fault.
Again, this was Bottas’ NINTH ever race win.
Now, fair enough, you might suggest that perhaps this was an attempt at humour, or even a mild form of trolling, by the number 77. After all, during the week leading up to the race, he directly responded to one ‘fan’ on Instagram who didn’t believe that the driver was there to actually compete with Hamilton.
But given the context that, for a large majority of Formula One fans, Bottas’ inability to challenge his teammate on Sundays, or even really Saturdays, means the sport has lost a lot of its entertainment value.
Gone are the days of multiple teams being able to compete for race wins. It’s not been since 2018 that any team has been able to put up consistent competition to the German car manufacturer.
For two years now, it has just been Mercedes that have been so quick at almost every track. Sure, the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull (and even Alpha Tauri that one time) have taken a few race wins here and there, but at any given track it is the silver (or now black) arrows that are expected at the front.
In those two years, Bottas has earned seven pole positions, four fastest laps and six race wins. For most drivers, those numbers would be very respectable. They’re comparable to the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc and Verstappen, three of the most successful drivers on the current grid.
But Bottas isn’t there to be compared to those guys. Bottas is now expected to compete directly with his teammate.
In the same time-frame, 2019 and this season, Hamilton has earned 13 pole positions, 11 fastest laps and a staggering 17 race wins. He finished a total 87 points ahead of his teammate in 2019 and currently leads by 44 in this year’s driver standings.
Meanwhile, Bottas finished 48 points ahead of third placed Verstappen in 2019, and is a mighty 33 points ahead in the current season, despite Verstappen having only finished seven of the ten races. Bottas has yet to suffer a DNF in 2020.
The 2017 and 2018 seasons are more excusable. Ferrari and Red Bull were much closer more consistently, particularly the Ferrari of Vettel who finished above Bottas in both championships. While Bottas failed to even win a single race in the 2018 season, it must be remembered that he was instructed to let Hamilton pass him for the lead in that year’s Russian Grand Prix.
In those years he proved himself a solid team player, and when your better teammate is competing for a title against an opposing constructor then you have to help out when you can. This is most commonly known as the Ruebens Barrichello role, or even the anti-Mark Webber.
But at a time when we are all crying out for a championship battle, the least fans deserve is someone who can actually compete with his teammate on a consistent basis. Nico Rosberg was more than capable of pushing Hamilton, and even managed to earn a championship of his own, but Bottas has completely failed to live up to the standard the German set during the 2014–2016 seasons.
With it looking likely that the Mercedes dominance will only continue in 2021, the inevitability of Hamilton running away with a seventh and eighth world title will surely signal the end of a failed era of Formula One before the new regulation changes come into effect in 2022 which will hopefully shake things up.
And who knows, maybe by then Bottas will have found a way to compete with his 37-year old teammate. Or, more likely, he’ll have found a new car at a team with ambitions that match his own: steadily finishing in the points with little fight to show for it.
To Bottas,
Get good.
Love, F1 fans.
