Bottas: 'After five years with a top team you have to win a title once'
General
- GPblog.com
Prior to the season, there was talk of a Valtteri Bottas 3.0. The Finn announced that he will be more selfish at times in the upcoming Formula One season. The Mercedes driver explains what exactly he meant with that statement. Bottas also knows that there is still room for improvement.
"It’s important to think more about myself. And what really is the goal in my career – which is the championship – and think less about others," Bottas noted in an interview with GP Racing magazine. An example of this is the recent Spanish Grand Prix where Bottas did not let his teammate Lewis Hamilton pass him despite driving on a different strategy and fighting for different positions in the race.
Bottas knows he has to deliver
Bottas made the switch to Mercedes at the beginning of 2017, so Bottas has begun already his fifth season at the German team. "You can’t change yourself. But if I look at the big picture of my career, it’s not going to last forever. If you’re with a [top] team five, six years, they expect you at least once to win the title, that’s how it goes. That’s how F1 works. And I acknowledge it completely," he says.
Bottas knows what he needs to do to make sure the penny starts falling his way. "I definitely need to challenge the team when I can, in a good way. I want to make sure all the eggs are in my bowl – I want to make sure I get the better strategy." Currently, Bottas is being used to put pressure on Max Verstappen to allow Lewis Hamilton to go for the win.