Tuesday, June 8th 2021
“Just really bad”
Bottas torments Mercedes and himself
Heavy headwinds for Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas. After the Finn also disappointed in the Formula 1 race in Azerbaijan, TV expert and ex-driver Jolyon Palmer shoots sharply at the 31-year-old. Personnel is increasingly becoming a problem for Mercedes.
Mick Schumacher, Nikita Mazepin, Nicholas Latifi and Lewis Hamilton: Those were the four drivers that Valtteri Bottas left behind at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. If Hamilton hadn’t braked badly after the restart, the Finn would even have finished ahead of the two hopelessly inferior Haas and Latifi. Ex-Formula 1 driver and TV expert Jolyon Palmer thinks this is an indictment.
Bottas is also sobered himself: “I can’t remember ever having had a weekend like this,” he said. “Ok, there were weekends when I had bad sessions, but at some point I had the pace. But this weekend it was always bad and I still didn’t understand why. I know my limit, I can do it faster than that not and then you’re still six, seven, eight tenths behind. That’s not normal, we have to understand that before we go to France. “
Palmer also criticizes his limit: “He was stuck behind Lando Norris, but was driving with the same strategy and the same power unit in a car in which Lewis Hamilton was much faster than the McLaren,” he said in the “Checkered Flag” – Podcast: “In the battle wheel to wheel, you can see that every time, he (Bottas, editor’s note) is simply really bad.”
According to Palmer, Bottas lacks one thing above all: the proverbial elbow in a duel. “Put him in the middle of the field with some other cars around him and he won’t move forward. In the best case scenario, he’ll hold his position, but he’ll probably even move backwards.” And his harsh criticism goes even further: “Can you remember a good overtaking maneuver by Bottas?”, Asked Palmer, who rummaged in vain in his own memories and then came to an unequivocal answer: “He is in midfield and he stays in the field Midfield.”
Will he destroy the next world title?
This is increasingly becoming a problem for the Mercedes team. The rumors of a separation from the Finn are not exactly diminishing with these achievements. A month ago Bottas was upset about the “bullshit”. And team boss Toto Wolff had also appeased. But the Finn has only collected 47 points and is only sixth in the ranking of all drivers. For comparison: The World Championship leader, Max Verstappen, scored 105 points in the same time, team-mate Lewis Hamilton 101. Since the second Red Bull driver, Sergio Perez, has recently won, the Mexican has already contributed 69 points to the constructors’ championship : Red Bull has hurried away from Mercedes.
The weekends in Monaco and Azerbaijan were the “toughest” in his tenure as Mercedes team boss, said Wolff. “I think a lot of things are not working as smoothly as they have been for the last couple of years. We are not operating at our highest level.” There are “so many things” that the team needs to improve “so that we are even able to fight for the World Cup,” emphasized Wolff. “We can’t keep losing points like we did in Monaco and here in Baku. It’s just not acceptable to all of us.”
Bottas does not have a good standing, especially not if the series world champion Hamilton also fails: Bottas is often passed on, Palmer reiterated his criticism. “The restart (in Baku, editor’s note) was similar to his start in Monza last year, when he started from the beginning and was overtaken in every corner.” Only twelfth place remains for the Finn after he was eliminated in Monza as in Imola. The otherwise dominant Mercedes is slowly but surely in doubt. On the driver and on the world title.
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