Bottas still the ideal second man, should Russell go to Mercedes?

Statistics

Team: Mercedes

Drivers: Lewis Hamilton - Valtteri Bottas

Racing duel: 6-2

Points: 195 - 108

Qualifying duel: 8-3

Qualifying difference: 0.199s in favour of Hamilton

Bottas as second fiddle

For many fans, it almost feels like a done deal. Russell is the talent of Mercedes, and should now finally get the chance to race alongside Hamilton at Mercedes. The young Briton has shown what he can do at Williams and has now even scored his first points for that team. He scored his first career points in a Mercedes when he replaced Hamilton who was recovering from COVID-19. 

In that race for Mercedes, Russell already had the better of Bottas, so it was a surprise for many that the Finn was protected for a longer time. Why, you might ask, but when you look at the numbers it is quite logical. Bottas is doing exactly what you would expect from a second driver.

In the number of races both drivers have finished, Hamilton has finished ahead of Bottas six times, but the Finn has also been ahead twice. In qualifying, we see a similar trend. Hamilton was eight times faster but was also beaten three times. A good ratio when you already have a team leader fighting for the title.

Better than Perez

For the fans, it is of course better if there is a lot of fighting going on within the team, but that is not the ideal situation for a team. They want a leader who gets the best out of the car and a second driver who is right behind him. That way the leader is challenged, but there is never a problem within the team.

Bottas is doing much better than his rival Sergio Perez, who has only once qualified ahead of Max Verstappen and has never finished ahead of the Dutchman in a race. Bottas is just doing his job. The difference on Saturday is completely minimal. There Bottas loses on average just under two tenths per qualifying session. For comparison, Perez loses 0.453s on Verstappen.

Russell or Bottas?

Although Bottas is showing good performances on paper, there are question marks. His speed on Sunday leaves much to be desired (judging by the difference in points) and during races, he can sometimes be caught making a big mistake. Think back to his crash in Hungary for example.

So it is not surprising that Russell is named as his replacement. The young Briton has won the internal duel at Williams by a distance for three years now, and also showed immediately how competitive he is at Mercedes. If he can do what Bottas does, then that's fine for Mercedes and with his age also a guarantee for the future. However, if Russell were to do much better than Bottas, then that could well cause problems within the team, as Mercedes saw before with Nico Rosberg and Hamilton.

This article first appeared on the Dutch edition of GPblog, written by Tim Kraaij.