Valtteri Bottas has driven for Mercedes since 2017 but he is departing the team and moving to Alfa Romeo for 2022, whilst current Williams driver, George Russell, will take his place. Mercedes team boss, Toto Wolff, is expecting Bottas to lead Alfa Romeo despite not being an F1 phenomenon.
Bottas has been a team player for Mercedes for five years, racing alongside Lewis Hamilton. He has struggled this season in certain races but is third in the Driver’s Championship with 185 points, just behind the two title contenders.
So far this season, Bottas has scored 8 podiums and 1 race win in Turkey, where he performed better than both Verstappen and Hamilton, who finished P2 and P5. Wolff praised Bottas’ performance at the Intercity Istanbul Park saying it was “10/10 from the get-go” and an “absolutely dominant drive”.
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The decision to part with Bottas was not easy for the Mercedes team. On their Instagram Mercedes bid farewell to Bottas and said he “will forever be part of the Mercedes family“. The Finn has proved himself over the years since becoming Hamilton’s teammate with 56 podiums, 18 pole positions and 10 race wins. Regarding Bottas’ move to Alfa Romeo, Wolff has said:
“He is certainly not a phenomenon like Lewis or Max, which is very rare, but recently in Turkey, for example, he did driver better than those two.”
Wolff was sad to see Bottas leave Mercedes but it is clear that Wolff sees potential in Russell to help bring the team more success in 2022. Speaking to Speed Week, Wolff has said that Russell has to be a “team player” whether or not he is “slower or faster or tied with Lewis”.
With the Mercedes driver line-up changing after five years, it will be exciting to see how Bottas performs in a new car with a new team that uses a Ferrari engine. Great things are expected of both Bottas and Russell and only time will tell how well they perform.
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