“Valtteri Bottas knows what he has to do”– Toto Woff makes sures that the Finn’s performances will reward him amidst the George Russell links

Valtteri Bottas was furious by the end of his race in France, as the Finn race driver warned his race engineer, the race to be a two-step race, but Mercedes stuck to one-stop strategy, losing the race against Red Bull.

Despite the result Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff  was delighted with his performance, as he understood that P4 was a good decision with Red Bull’s tactics.

“I still think Valtteri did a good race,” the team boss told Formule1.com. “He was very close to Max and Lewis for much of the race. In terms of tyre management, it’s also going in the right direction.”

“There is still a difference between Valtteri and Lewis in that respect, but I really see progress in how Valtteri handles the races. And we’ve never had any doubts about his qualifying.”

Also Read : McLaren F1 Team Principle Andreas Seidl confident of Ricciardo for Austrian Grand Prix

Toto Wolff talks about Bottas leaving Mercedes rumors

Lately, it has been speculated that Bottas would be heading out of Mercedes after the end of the year, and would be replaced by Mercedes driving programme graduate- George Russell.

When asked about this to Wolff, the Austrian replied that Bottas knows what he has to do this year to ward off these  rumours from all the outlets’ headlines. “Valtteri knows that performing on the track is the only answer to all these rumours.”

However, it doesn’t appear that Bottas has much time left with Hamilton and Mercedes, the latter was even accused of not keeping up with the team spirit. The management has also apparently been avoiding him on the radio.

This signalling that Mercedes is ready to implant its own prodigy by hiring the Briton next year

Also Read : Lewis Hamilton touts Red Bull favouite for Austria double-header

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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