Valtteri Bottas will look to put right the team order controversy of 2018 as Formula 1 heads to the Russian Grand Prix this weekend.
The Finn is a specialist around the Sochi Autodrom with a result of no worse than fourth in each race he has finished, including a victory for Mercedes in 2017.
And now he has extra motivation to add a second, following the infamous ‘Valtteri, it’s James’ moment from last year when Bottas was asked to give up the win to Lewis Hamilton.
“I’ve got some unfinished business in Sochi. It has normally been a good track for me and I need to make sure it will be again,” he said.
“It could be a good track for Ferrari with all the straights, but we’re going there with a good feeling and determined to finish it better than last year and in a different way.”
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Bottas is also in need of a first victory since Baku if he wants any kind of chance of trying to make up the 65-point deficit to Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship
But it is the sudden improvement by Ferrari in Singapore which has caught everyone’s attention, with the 30-year-old stating that Mercedes will have to simply do better in Sochi to get ahead.
“With such a quick turnaround you cannot do much with the car, but there will be things to do with the setup and there will also be some small bit here and there,” he explained.
“But it’s mainly to take the points to learn from this weekend, to learn, forget and move on.
“For me, personally, that’s about it, then I’ll go to Russia, we all start from zero, and I’ll try to remember those good feelings from the years before and try to find that same flow I found there before and go from there.”