“Probably one of the best races of my life, ever” – Valtteri Bottas won the Turkish Grand Prix in comfortable fashion, his first win of the 2021 season.
Valtteri Bottas continued his dominant run all weekend in Turkey, winning the race and the bonus point for the fastest lap. The Alfa Romeo-bound star led the entire race barring nine laps when Charles Leclerc stayed on in the intermediate tyres he started the race on.
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) October 10, 2021
Bottas is in the final year of his Mercedes journey, to be replaced by Williams star George Russell. He has had it tough at Mercedes, facing criticism for playing second fiddle to teammate Lewis Hamilton in all the five seasons together.
But this win will help shut most of his critics, showing everyone what he is capable of. He was expectedly delighted after the win, calling it “one of the best races” of his career.
“It has been a while but it feels good. From my side, probably one of the best races of my life, ever. Apart from that one little slide, everything was under control.
“The car has been really good in every condition, I had really good confidence with it and could really control it. It is not easy to choose the strategy here with these conditions and when to stop but I am glad it went smooth for once for me.
“When there is only one drying line, it doesn’t need much for you to go off so definitely needed to focus all through the race. A difficult one and yeah, it feels like a well earned victory.”
