Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has claimed Valtteri Bottas would be willing to give up more wins to help Lewis Hamilton in the future.
This past weekend in Sochi saw the clearest use of team orders to directly favour the Briton so far as Bottas was ordered to let Hamilton by during the race and then told to hold station in the closing stages.
After the race, the Finn suggested the circumstances which led to Mercedes’ order were “confusing” and was visibly frustrated on the podium, however, Wolff insists he has a guarantee from the 29-year-old that he will continue to be a team player.
“Valtteri was willing to sacrifice his win in Sochi to help protect our 1-2 and extend our lead in both championships and he said he’d be prepared to do the same again tomorrow. That tells you everything you need to know about the quality and integrity of his character,” the Austrian chief was quoted by Motorsport Week.
“Valtteri proved in Sochi that he is a race-winning Grand Prix driver: he put it on pole, controlled the race and had the pace to win and he also showed that he is a great team player when we need him to be in the final stages of the season.”
Adding his opinion on the topic, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admitted he doesn’t understand why Bottas wouldn’t have expected the call that Mercedes made.
“It shouldn’t have been a surprise. I’m surprised it would have been a surprise to anybody,” he claimed. “It’s very easy to forget that F1 is a team sport. The drivers ultimately drive for the team.
“What was, I suppose, slightly confusing about that is that it wasn’t all pre-discussed and agreed going into the event.”
Since the events of Sunday, Hamilton has maintained his victory in Russia wasn’t one of his proudest and has praised Bottas for what he did.
Even so, he remains adamant it was the best decision for his championship.
“I think only time will tell,” he said.
“If you look at what Ferrari did, for example, a few races back, if we were to lose the championship by one point, would you look back and think we should have worked as a team or not?
“So that’s one of the conflicting things that we had and ultimately we are a team — the team want to win both championships, not just one of them so that’s why the bosses of Mercedes and our team took that decision.”