Valtteri Bottas confident of beating Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton this season

Valtteri Bottas confident that his team would be defending their Constructors title, but an intra-team rivalry is already on the cards.

Finnish racer Valtteri Bottas has expressed confidence that he has the ability to grab the title in 2020. He is preparing to go all out, and has admitted to new additions in his “driving toolbox”.

If he manages to succeed, he will prevent Hamilton from winning a record-equaling 7 World Championships. Bottas is entering his fourth season alongside Hamilton at Mercedes.

Unsurprisingly, the latter has beaten Bottas on the overall points tally every season. He is due to have talks with Mercedes over a contract renewal. An impressive showing this season will strengthen his claim to a great extent.

Four-time Champion Sebastian Vettel and George Russell are in contention of the 2021 Mercedes spot, alongside Lewis. He had a very strong 2019 season, beating all the drivers barring his teammate Hamilton.

He is clearly on a mission to overtake his teammate, both on the race track and the points tally. Speaking to Sky Sports F1 he said he is following more confident and complete than he has ever been on the F1 circuit.

“I really feel that this extra time off, which was unexpected, was only good for me, I’ve been able to drive a lot too, and some of the other drivers may have struggled to drive during the lockdown. I’ve been doing karting, rallying every week since we came back from Melbourne. So I feel good also driving wise.”

“It’s obviously going to be a pretty special season because it’s going to be shorter than the planned amount of races,” he added. “So every mistake will cost you much more than previously.

“It’s all about the consistency and I feel we’ve been working on with the team and my core engineering team in terms of my driver style, I feel I have a couple of new things in my driving style toolbox that I could use.

“I feel I’m more complete as a driver and also physically, I’m peaking now. Hopefully, that can really translate. I’m very confident, mentally in a good place, and I’m going to go all out, no doubt.”

Also read: “We want to be the main challengers of Mercedes” – asserts Red Bull’s Helmut Marko

The Formula One 2020 seasons will kick off in Austria, with the first race on the 5^th of July.

About the author

Subham Jindal

A Red - be it Manchester United or Ferrari. Hails from the hills of Kalimpong, Darjeeling. Aspiring to become a respected Sports Management professional.

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