Bottas says he is not excluded from Mercedes team meetings
Oct.15 - Valtteri Bottas has apparently not been excluded from Mercedes' key operations, even though he is departing for Alfa Romeo in 2022.
As Lewis Hamilton struggled to recover from his engine grid penalty in Turkey, Finn Bottas comfortably kept position in P1 throughout the Istanbul race for his first win of the season.
Some, though, wondered how hard he would be celebrating as Mercedes looks ahead to replacing him with George Russell next year.
"I think the team has been good, nothing has really changed, everything is normal," Bottas said. "Everyone seems happy."
He even denied that he is being excluded from certain development and strategic meetings, as is often customary when a driver leaves a top team.
"I'm in every meeting that I've been in before in these five years," Bottas insisted.
"If there's other meetings, I don't know about those. For me, everything is normal."
It's a message that is echoed by Mercedes' engineering chief, Andy Shovlin, who said Bottas remains central to the team's push for the 2021 titles.
"Both these championships mean a lot to us, and Valtteri will play a really key role in the drivers' as much as in the constructors' championship," he said.
"He knows how the team works, he knows how we approach the engineering of the car. So there's no sense in starting to cut him out of any information."
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Keep Bottas he is the best for Mercedes, especially with a new car next year, Mercedes would only have the problem with a new car rather than Russell trying to beat Lewis, if you remember he has already cost Mercedes points and cost when he crashed into Bottas, from a true Mercedes fan
Not so much excluded but just arriving after everyone else, bit like his racing.
My opinion is the person who made the comment about Bottas driving should watch the races and not listen to the commentators who are just trying to stir things up look at the points Bottas has and his current position.
Mark, some of us don't like facts. Don't bother us with truth.
Nothing wrong with Bottas. Good driver. Maybe he can twll Alfa (and us!?) what Merc did to their intercooler after the season ends.
Mercedes kept Bottas down to promote Hamilton's title bid
Most unfair.
Watch your back George
George, Bring your own soap bars. Leave any dropped bars on the floor...
You're in lala land if you think that, at worst, once VB was found to be lacking mid season, they backed hamilton as their nr1 driver costing vb a handful of points.
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