Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes Valtteri Bottas needs just “one good weekend” to get his fight with Lewis Hamilton back on track.
The Finn hasn’t beaten his teammate since Baku and, with the reigning champion rattling off four straight wins, he has opened up a 36-point lead in the standings as a result.
It is already leading to suggestions the ‘new’ Bottas of the early races might be fading away, but Wolff is confident Valtteri can rebound.
“With a decent start in some of the last races he could have won two of them, and he knows that,” the Austrian said despite watching Hamilton win by 18 seconds at Paul Ricard.
“I’m optimistic that Valtteri just needs one good weekend in order to come close to Lewis and not let him run away with the championship.
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“Valtteri has shown great pace on the single lap (qualifying), I think he’s ramped up his game tremendously from last season to this season.
“Now the second weakness that he needs to tackle is the tyre management and he’s very aware of that where he needs to improve,” he concluded.
This weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix might just represent a good chance for Bottas, who won at this race in 2017 and started on pole last year.
“There are tracks where he’s as strong as Lewis or has been stronger, where it’s not rear-limited,” he explained.
“On the tracks where that is more of a factor, he just needs to change his driving style, that is not trivial for a racing driver, but he has all the abilities to do that.”
Sky Sports commentator Martin Brundle is worried for the 29-year-old, however.
“Bottas needs to urgently find that guy with wild eyes who I interviewed as the winner at the end of the Australian Grand Prix, and invite him back into the cockpit,” he said in his post-race column.
“Lewis has the clear upper hand and he hasn’t even reached the summer break yet, after which he tends to get really fast.”