Bottas says his Mercedes F1 chassis must have fault
Jun.7 - Valtteri Bottas' chances of keeping his seat at Mercedes took another hit at Baku with a miserable weekend of pace for the Finn.
As the hopeful George Russell knocks loudly on Toto Wolff's door, Bottas had to admit he felt like "a moving chicane" all weekend on the Azerbaijani streets.
"Something was badly wrong this weekend," he said after finishing twelfth.
"I don't know what. But I know this is not my level of performance," Bottas told Finnish reporters.
"I can't remember having a weekend like this before," the 31-year-old insisted. "I've had weekends with bad sessions, but there were always moments when I still had the pace. But this wasn't like that at all."
Bottas admitted that, while his teammate Lewis Hamilton also struggled at times at Baku, his personal theory is that his chassis has a fundamental fault.
"That's at least the most logical explanation," he said.
Boss Wolff, however, is not convinced. When asked why Hamilton was able to recover from a bad Friday to ultimately almost win the race, the Austrian admitted: "The difference was that Lewis found his confidence in a difficult car."
Wolff also denied that the team "sacrificed" Bottas in qualifying by positioning Hamilton behind him for a highly effective slipstream.
"No, we didn't sacrifice Valtteri," Wolff insisted.
"The drivers take turns choosing when to go out in qualifying, and this weekend it was Lewis' turn."
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BS. He guaranteed his seat by giving Lewis the slipstream, and Dr. DimenToto knows it. Lewis had no chance without that 0.6 second advantage.
the whole team arent performing , the drivers, the mechanics and Tonto.
Bottas, you've now gone from a number 2 you never supported LH any way to a number 3, after the catering driver.
I've figured it out. awardguy is Johnny Herbert's nom de plume and he is fronting for SKY.
Ha!!!! ;)
The announcing this weekend was pretty bad. So many errors.
Swede, you think F1 was bad? Did you watch F2 coverage on SKY? We have found a new challenger to HAM mentions.....Dan Tiktum. I understand that he is a Brit and appreciate fandom, but the young man is a foul mouthed, ill-tempered punk.
Didn't see it this weekend. Caught uo in F1, MotoGP and a ride on the KTM.
Did yiu hear Tsundao tell his engineer to Shut Up? Hilarious.
yes to be fair that was quite funny
no problem with that RoR,as Brits we already have enough silly comments floating around from Brit drivers... lol
strong possibility
Better to change Bottas than chassis.
Interestingly all the chat and banter is about Bottas potential final season with MB but theres a distinct lack of interviews about GR joining MB , no doubt VB is down , perhaps hes already been told his seat wont be renewed, and they havnt made it public like Ferrari did with SV, may explain why GR has been quiet recently, again could this be linked with how cautious TW is about not calling out LH mistakes recently, all ifs and maybes I know but , ok and im joining my own dots up here, but it does fit ...
Interesting POV, and I'm gonna' make some Brit enemies here, but I just don't see Georgie Boy as a future WDC. IMO, there a few better young guns out there. Yes, his one-off at MB last season was outstanding, but he just doesn't seem to have any leadership qualities. Again, IMO.
I can see why youd say that, but thats what its all pointing to even from tontos lying mouth lol, but if its not GR then do we see VB with team lead qualities , mmm, its speculation as Lucy could just up and leave at end of year, I mean we didnt see NR quitting did we esp as hed resigned in mid 2016 for nother 2 yrs , so wheres that leave us ? I might say back to MV ah its going to be a long year lol
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