Does Russell testing for Mercedes mean the end for Bottas?
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Now that the summer break has reached, it won't be long before the fate of Valtteri Bottas and George Russell becomes clear. Who will drive where in 2022? Many people think that Russell's seat has already been decided, but there are also people who think that Mercedes will keep Bottas. Russell himself gave his team the support on Sunday during the race in Hungary and told them that they could give Nicholas Latifi preference over his race. Is this a sign that the Brit already feels assured of a seat with the Silver Arrows? And what does the fact that Russell is doing the tyre test for Mercedes say about his future?
2022 tyre test
The-Race.com think the fact that Russell is doing the tyre test and not Bottas does say something about the future of both men. After all, Russell tested for Mercedes at the Hungaroring before, although this was more to strengthen his relationship with Toto Wolff and win over the team. "At this point there is certainly nothing for Russell to do to win over Mercedes. And there is nothing that Mercedes will learn from this test about Russell that it doesn't already know."
According to the news medium, the fact that Mercedes is letting Russell test with the tyres for 2022 and not Bottas is all telling: "This is all about testing Pirelli's 2022 tyres. It will certainly help Russell to test these with his team for next year. Lewis Hamilton has also already completed a test with the tyres for 2022."
No coincidence
"Maybe Valtteri Bottas was not available for this test, maybe Russell was planned all along so Mercedes could evenly distribute the initially planned workload. He has been a very useful test option before. However, he never had a chance to race for the team next season when he did those tests. Therefore, it's hard to imagine that it's just a coincidence that he's working just when a decision is expected on Mercedes' driver line-up in 2022," Scott Mitchell concluded.