F1 News

Bottas dubs 2019 as his "best season" despite recent struggles

10 August 2019 at 13:32
Last update 10 August 2019 at 14:31
  • Matt Gretton
  • Editor-in-Chief

Valtteri Bottas started the season in style with wins in Australia and Azerbaijan as well as three-second places in the opening five races. Since then, the Finn has slowly drifted away from the Formula 1 world championship leader Lewis Hamilton and he now has Max Verstappen breathing down his neck. 

Before the summer break, Bottas recorded a DNF in Germany and a P8 in Hungary. Even though this was his run into the break, Bottas feels positive about his form as he seeks a contract extension with Mercedes. 

“The positives are that this has been my best season performance-wise, I keep getting better. Qualifying has been good, racing is getting better and better but, obviously [in Hungary] I can’t get a proper read of how good my pace was, because it was a completely different race for me," Bottas told Motorsportweek. 

“That’s the positive and the negative is that there have still been some races where we lost some opportunities. Sometimes it was us, as a team, and sometimes it was me. So we’re still chasing the consistency in getting those results and in the last few races it has not been there.”

In comparison, Bottas had recorded just five podiums before the summer break in the 2018 Formula 1 season. And by this time last year, Bottas had secured a Mercedes contract extension.