“He was always in the shadow of Lewis Hamilton,” Fred Vasseur opines on Valtteri Bottas’ tenure at Mercedes

Valtteri Bottas at Alfa Romeo in 2022

🔍 Explore this post with:

The sole Finnish driver on the grid, Valtteri Bottas started his 2022 campaign in fresh colors. The 10 time grand-prix winner switched camps from the Mercedes AMG F1 team to Alfa Romeo F1 team this season. Valtteri Bottas on a three year contract finds himself partnering with a rookie team-mate, Zhou Guanyu. This translated into a leadership position for the experienced driver in a year where development of the car is key.

Valtteri Bottas started his season at a team who finished 9th in the constructor’s world championship in the 2021 season. Thus, the expectations were not high when it came to the competitiveness of his Alfa Romeo car. However, Alfa Romeo’s sporting director, Beat Zehnder said “Valtteri Bottas’s approach has been the polar opposite. He is always motivating. We’ve had other drivers who would have freaked out but he says ‘guys, I have faith in you, we’ll get this done’. He is calm in himself and that also helps us a lot.”

Alfa Romeo Team Principal, Fred Vasseur commends Valtteri Bottas’s Caliber

In the three races of the season so far, Valtteri Bottas has managed to score 12 points for the team and sits at the 9th position in the championship. He has managed to unlock the pace of his Alfa Romeo car splendidly. In light of this, Alfa Romeo boss, Fred Vassuer praised the Finnish driver and said “that despite Lewis Hamilton being the dominant force at Mercedes his pace has been strong throughout. He just had the misfortune of partnering the seven-time former World Champion at the peak of his powers.”

Fred Vasseur kept at speaking highly by commenting “He has done very well in the past few years in terms of pure performance. He was always in the shadow of Lewis, but I think anyone would be in the shadow of Lewis. I was convinced he could be the team leader and so far he is doing a great job. In the way he gives the development direction, the right way to improve the car and improve the team in every detail. He comes to us with an enormous amount of experience from Mercedes.”

Concluding, Alfa Romeo’s boss said that Valtteri Bottas has re-ignited the flame within the team and has boosted their chances of finishing higher in the championship. Alfa Romeo continues chasing Ferrari and Redbull up ahead, with Valtteri Bottas looking ahead to fighting the championship protagonists and his former team, Mercedes.