Formula 1 pundits have been quick to praise George Russell at the expense of Valtteri Bottas after his performance at the Sakhir Grand Prix.
The contracted Williams driver stepped in at Mercedes to replace Lewis Hamilton after his positive Covid-19 test and immediately made headlines, leading both practice sessions on Friday.
Bottas hit back on Saturday, taking pole albeit by just 0.026s, but on race day, Russell put Valtteri in the shade again, taking the lead at the start and controlling the race until the tyre mix-up at his second stop and a puncture denied George a likely win.
“In the race, I just tried to make the most out of it, and I knew that it’s going to be a long race ahead, so I don’t think about those kind of things,” Bottas said post-race.
“But now thinking about it, for sure, if you don’t know things, then I’d have looked like a complete c**t and a fool. So that’s not nice.
“It was a pretty bad race for me from that side, and it will be very easy for people to say a new guy comes in and beats the guy who’s been in the team for a few years. So it is not ideal.
“But the people who know, they know how is the performance, and they know how the end result could have been.
“I don’t know what to say really. Not ideal, obviously, this weekend.”
Bottas would allude to how the race didn’t tell the true picture later when he noted the period after the first pit-stop when he was quite quickly catching Russell, who was reporting a drop of power at the time.
“I knew that in the first stint with the medium tyre, the track position would be important, so obviously was unfortunate to lose that,” he said.
“But in the second stint, I was catching him at a pretty decent rate, so I knew everything is going to be open and most likely we’ll have a good battle.
“I still knew that everything was going to be to play for, especially towards the end of the stint on the hard tyres.”
Also Read:
- Wolff: Bottas & Hamilton will drive for Mercedes in 2021
- Mercedes can ‘count on’ Russell but a future seat remains uncertain
Ultimately, the pit-stop fiasco during the second Safety Car hurt Bottas more than it did Russell as he was a “sitting duck” for those behind after Mercedes had had to re-fit his hard tyres from the first pit-stop.
Even so, team boss Toto Wolff admitted it wasn’t a great weekend for the Finn, who eventually finished eighth.
“I need to talk with [Valtteri] and his crew – but yeah, he did not shine today,” he said.
The impact of last Sunday and Russell’s performance going forward has led to questions over the future of Bottas, particularly after next season, and potentially even Lewis Hamilton too, should Mercedes feel the 22-year-old can offer similar performance at a much cheaper price.
“I have no doubt that using Russell instead of the official test driver Stoffel Vandoorne, who was inbound anyway, was a big tactical decision by Toto Wolff,” ex-F1 driver Martin Brundle wrote in his post-race Sky Sports column.
“With Hamilton playing hard to get regarding a signature on a new contract, and doubts whether Valtteri Bottas was really stepping up to the plate lately despite his miserable luck, George would answer a few questions one way or the other.
“And so it proved to be as he assuredly led the race after a perfect start, and without being entirely comfortable inside the car or fully up to speed with all of its systems, Russell dramatically raised his own value and opportunities, capped Hamilton’s and dented Bottas’.
“Along with his Safety Car crash at Imola, young George has taken some body blows this year, but overall it was a very significant weekend for him and he appears to have sufficient confidence and self-belief to weather it all.”
However, while Lewis Hamilton is a Mercedes driver, another ex-driver, Marc Surer, believes Bottas is safe.
“Russell’s performance was as expected and not a surprise,” he told Formula1News.co.uk.
“If you look back at his career in F3 and F2 and even in the Williams, he was showing his talent and now, in the best car, he proved that he’s a super talent.
“But I think Mercedes is not the kind of team that would drop a driver and this is the point,” he continued.
“I don’t think Lewis wants a driver like Russell next to him, as it will make his life difficult.
“He will probably steal points [from him] and will not be such a nice teammate when he wants to win his eighth F1 title.
“So I think nothing will change and Russell will have to wait one more year to join Mercedes.”
