Valtteri Bottas is hoping to use the experience he has gathered from his first year with Mercedes to produce stronger results in 2018, after seeing his season slip since the summer break.

For much of the 2017 season, the Finn was one of the star performers keeping teammate Lewis Hamilton on his toes and claiming his first two poles and wins in Formula 1, the latter coming in Russia and Austria.

They earned him an extension of his initial contract for next year but as the championship battle has progressed, Bottas has fallen back a bit, struggling to get within half a second of the newly crowned world champion in qualifying and finishing some 20 seconds behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in second last time out in Mexico.

Much of that has been put down to the difficulties Mercedes have had optimising the performance of the W08 but the 28-year-old admits he has come up short of his own expectations.

"I’m personally expecting much better," said Bottas in an interview with The Flying Lap. "I’ve learned massively this year from the whole team, from Lewis and from my own struggles.

"I believe if I work hard during the winter, analyse everything and start the new season with a team I know and with a car that I know much better because I didn’t know it at all this season, I’m expecting much more."

Some of his woes have likely come with the team backing Hamilton in his title battle with the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, with the Briton admitting development was done to suit his style but Bottas admitted he has been struck by how much his teammate works with his Mercedes team.

"He works hard, he spends a lot of time with the guys, at the race weekends, visits the factory quite a bit," the former Williams driver said.

"I didn’t know him as a person at all really, it was only what I’ve seen from the outside. This year, I’ve learned he’s a very nice guy, just a normal human being, as the rest of us.

"[He has] good manners, good respect and doesn’t play any games."