Toto Wolff hints at potential Mercedes return for Valtteri Bottas and admits robbing the Finnish driver of an extra victory

Toto Wolff hints at potential Mercedes return for Valtteri Bottas and admits robbing the Finnish driver of an extra victory

Valtteri Bottas

Valtteri Bottas will leave Mercedes after five successful seasons at the German team. The Finnish driver will now drive for Alfa Romeo for the next season, whereas, George Russell gets the highly coveted Mercedes second seat.

Valtteri Bottas forged an epic partnership with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, as the duo won five constructors championships together. Bottas had 10 race victories to his name during his spell at Mercedes, and never failed to make it to the third qualifying session.

Toto Wolff admitted that Valtteri Bottas could have a lot more wins during his tenure at Mercedes. The Austrian team principal pointed out to one particular race where Bottas was certainly robbed, which was in Sochi in 2018. The driver was instructed to let his teammate, Lewis Hamilton pass by as Bottas had to be content with P2.

“[You have] 10 wins. Plus Sochi so 11. Or was there another one?,” said Wolff.

Bottas- “There was a few where I was robbed.”

Wolff: “Yes but this one [Sochi] was really robbed.”

Bottas: “Yeah but there were others like Baku where I got the puncture on the last lap…those kind of things.”

Wolff: “Ok this was a DNF, but the one that I robbed was Sochi so put 10 plus 1.”

Toto Wolff reveals Valtteri Bottas return not off the table

Valtteri Bottas

Toto Wolff further hinted that Valtteri Bottas’ return to Mercedes was certainly not off the table. The Mercedes team principal stated that analyzing Bottas’ performance at Alfa Romeo, they would work up the numbers in the future if needed.  

“Well maybe you go on a little bit of a sabbatical with Alfa Romeo and then we see how many more [numbers] we can add,” Wolff hinted.

Valtteri Bottas added that one can never be certain as to what holds in the future in a sport like Formula One. He stated that he knows where he would be driving for the next few years, but has no clue on his long term future as of now.

“The speed of this sport…you never know what comes ahead of you. At least I know for the next few years but you never know [after that],” Bottas added.

Lewis Hamilton will driver for Mercedes atleast until 2023, as his new contract suggests. If the Briton hangs up helmet after two years, we could see a scenario where Valtteri Bottas returns to Mercedes once again.

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