Valtteri Bottas faces the open door and test of his life taking after his change to Mercedes for 2017. After four periods of strong exhibitions with Williams, the 27-year-old Finn has been compensated with each driver’s fantasy – a seat with the best team in Formula 1.
Bottas won’t not be the most energizing of decisions for Mercedes. Fans far and wide would have wanted to see Hamilton fight McLaren’s Fernando Alonso once more, or go up against Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo or Max Verstappen, or Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Be that as it may, his interest to Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff is self-evident.
There have been flashes of brightness -, for example, qualifying third in the wet in an uncompetitive Williams in Canada in 2013 – that recommend a genuine ability.
Also, by and large, the general observation is Bottas’ record against Felipe Massa at Williams in the course of recent years is like Alonso’s against the Brazilian at Ferrari before that.
However, the certainties don’t bear that out. While Bottas and Alonso beat Massa in both qualifying and races, the Spaniard’s preference over the Brazilian was altogether greater.
Bottas is Wolff’s endeavor to locate a like-for-like trade for German Nico Rosberg, who dropped Mercedes in the soil by reporting his retirement a year ago, five days in the wake of securing his first world title. What’s more, it’s not just about their light hair or Finnish lineage.
Notwithstanding a surprising slip in shape for Mercedes, Bottas will transform from being a periodic platform guest to a race-champ and conceivably title contender this year.
In the event that 2017 takes after the pattern of those outcomes, Hamilton can be required to be easily faster than Bottas.
Maybe all the more astonishing is that those correlations propose that not exclusively is Bottas not a match for Alonso and Hamilton, but rather he won’t not equivalent Rosberg either.
In any case, drivers’ shape does not generally specifically interpret crosswise over teams and opponents in as straight a mold as may be normal.
It is dependent upon Bottas to demonstrate the correlations wrong and get the open door with both hands.
In any case, in new team-mate Lewis Hamilton, Bottas faces a foe a long ways past anything he has encountered as such. How he measures up will probably characterize whatever is left of his career.
