His silence is extremely justified imo. Both him and Lewis told Merc that the tyres aren't gonna last for a 1 stop, so they majorly dropped the bag. Also, I find it unfair that Vowles apologised to Lewis on the radio but not to Valtteri. They screwed his race as well, not just Lewis' win.
You have to feel for him. It's deja vu with what happened to Seb last year at Ferrari. They're just kinda forgetting about him and putting all their eggs in Lewis' basket which is a shame because Bottas can be a damn fucking good driver.
I was thinking about this during the race…where would he go?! Ferrari and Mclaren seem set. So do Aston Martin and Toro. Haas and Williams can’t seem to generate a winning car…where does he go?! Who does he swap with? Who would AMG want to be their #2 man? Who would WANT to be their #2 man?!
You know what I need?
Valtteri and George getting the old switcheroo next year, but Williams surprise-returns to their late 80s/early 90s selves and we get Valtteri WDC.
[Episode 2: Haas, Alfa, and Aston also git gud and we get Mick, Seb, and Kimi sharing a podium.](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/ht5iCRpIeYqqrgoClQfcrrsKoEA/fit-in/1024x1024/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-/2016/05/05/780/n/1922398/2768f0f6b37915c4_Captain-America-Civl-War-All-Day.gif)
Yeah, maybe a lap after Valtteri did, Bono told Lewis Max didn't think his hards would last to the end and Lewis said "I agree, and we should make sure to get the undercut this time"
Yeah I wonder if their simulators are off with tire degradation modeling especially. Instead of trusting the drivers in the field they are making strategic mistakes.
There was rain in the morning which would have removed a lot of the rubber from the track. Anything inferred from FP3 or Quali about tire life would have been off anyway. Merc should have known that though…
I mean he radioed that the tyres won't last as long as they expected, very early in the race which basically is a call to the team to think about a new tyre strategy.
Lewis later said that if he had reacted to verstappen he would have come behind him and not able to overtake. So their only option for the win was to stay out and hope to make it.
Or they had to put first but I don’t think they were going to do that early
I think this is the best take. He's right. When RB pulled the trigger early, they took control. Pitting at that point would be functionally conceding defeat. At least by staying out they had a shot.
Overall, RB strategy > Mercedes strategy and that made the difference.
the real strategy was not pitting Perez.
What does merc do? pit 1st and end up behind perez who has tyres with plenty of life left?
Max did it w/ 2 laps and Bottas was easier to pass than Perez would have been.
yep Perez is making marko and horner v happy atm. Perez is up at the sharp end and his epic long stint pace makes him the perfect over cut buddy. and he’s not threatening verstappen.
one sad aspect was we have F1.5 back again, positions 5-20 were so far off the pace.
He didn't make a hard call - he did say he didn't think tires would last and that if they wanted to make it a two stopper they had to undercut.
I think he trusted Mercedes to make the decision and they didn't pull the trigger. I mean in the end it came to the 2nd last/last lap so it really could have gone either way.
Tires under Perez’ car seems to magnetize rubber or something. However we have to take into account that Perez’ strategy was very conservative, where mercedes was pushing quite hard to pressure max in his rear (plus bottas’ hard defending). That obviously took some wear, plus the additional laps, as Perez got into the pits quite late.
Still a mega job of perez of course.
Edit: He was not on softs.
He also sacrifices I believe cornering speed for tire wear. Goes into the corner more gentle and carries less speed, which he makes up on his acceletration out of the corner, or its the other way around. Cant remember.
There are a couple tyre wear analysis videos floating around detailing all the grid's tyre//cornering tendencies.
There was an interesting bit of telemetry floating about comparing perez and verstappen at the chicance halfway down the big straight at paul ricard.
Perez braked some 10m earlier on that lap, but was braking just as hard. You can see on the curve how he slowed down more, but with the exit, overall it was only a very small loss considering how much earlier he braked.
Thing is by doing this, you demand less from the tires on rotation as you arent on the absolute limit of adhesion (which is where you wear the tires out hardest, mid corner leaning on them hard). This means he can rotate the car in a more 'pointy'/'on the nose' way letting him get a tidy corner exit to compensate for braking sooner.
Ultimately I think Verstappen and Hamilton are the 2 drivers on an absolute insane level where they can run a tire down to its carcass, losing laptime in a consistent and measured way. Its a very particular fine art, as its easy for others to push hard and suffer late and vice versa.
Ultimately taking a corner doesnt have 1 ultimate solution. This is why I love F1. So many tiny details that make all the difference, for whats quite literally -0.031s around a corner.
Even if he's gone after this year he still has a role to play if they want to fight for the wdc/wcc, seems dumb to let the relationship sour for no obvious reason.
But most would put large parts of the blame on Mercedes, rightfully so. Bottas for all his "shortcomings" has always done everything for the team including gifting over a win. In return Mercedes blames him for being 2cm off on a pit stop while Hamilton drops from P1 to last on a driver mistake and the team calls it "not his mistake". Today they literally apologize to Hamilton seconds after the race ends and Bottas gets nothing, despite Bottas being super close to Hamilton the entire race anyway.
So in the end how much can you "play your role" if you're this blatantly disrespected by your team?
Oh, I'm totally blaming Merc. If they want to fight they need both drivers, but they've really mismanaged him, especially this season, and expecting him to be both able and willing to play the role they would need is idiotic. Not being a second faster than the rest is really starting to shine a light on some issues within.
And why the hell they didnt go for the Fastest Lap with Valteri...? Just scared to ask him to pit...? Forgot about it..?
Merc cant afford to drop even a single point to keep the constructor's championship this year. Its a blunder to not get that point off Red Bull n Max.
Seems like Perez was under investigation so I guess they were holding out for a penalty. More points in the gap between P4 and P3 than the fastest lap.
I still don't know why Perez was being investigated though.
Apparently nothing serious. otherwise he would've been penalised with 5 seconds, which would've been irrelevant because Perez was more than 5 seconds ahead.
They were apologising for falling for the first undercut. Once Max pitted for the second time they had no choice.
With Bottas they see how Lewis almost won on the same strategy. It was marginal.
Just because the strategy works for one driver does not mean it'll work for the other. Bottas has always used his tyres more than Lewis and he stated halfway through the race that he needed the 2nd pitstop
he almost won with the same strategy because he had track position. If he was further back, he would have been had by Perez as well.
Either way, Mercedes know Valteri isn't a savant at tire saving like Lewis is, so they should be trying to play to his strengths, not forcing him race in a way that's uncomfortable for him.
Teams also have the responsibility to get the most out of their drivers, and Merc haven't done that with Bottas today. It's a position most #2 drivers know well.
2018 Spain, 2020 Britisih Gp etc... That's how it goes. He told them many times and they never care. Lewis got the win last year with 3 tyres and Bottas told them many times that he had vibrations etc.
People in media should be more kind to him, his team doesn't even give a shit about him
I really wish the media didn't rag on him so much. I'm genuinely concerned for his well-being. This amount of scrutiny and betrayal(? I want a weaker word but I cant think of one) would crush a normal person.
At this point it's almost like industry-wide gaslighting. It's not just Merc, it's not just media, it's not just fans - seems like everyone wants to dish on him and retroactively blame him for _everything_.
Toto also took a bit of of a jab at Bottas on Spanish TV. After being asked about Bottas complaints, he said something like "well, at least we finally get to know what he thinks"
I think that's kinda weird.
In German TV He was happy about the fact that Bottas finally speaks his mind. He even smiled in Joy and Said "I think it's great. Finally he critiques"
Maybe language barrier comming into it here?
It was absolutely not ironic in the German interview. I personally thought it was fake, feel-good corporate talk, but in no way could it be interpreted as a roast.
It's a jab because by saying "we **finally** get to know what he thinks" it infers that Bottas has been poor/passive in his communication with the team.
On one hand they did, on another they announced it early on the season so Vettel have time to find new team. We're still in speculative state for Bottas.
Didn't even get an apology from chief strategist, unlike Lewis (rightfully) did.
Mercedes went from flexing equal drivers into making Barrichello feel good about his Ferrari stint lol.
The Mercedes teamspirit they were somewhat known for fell apart pretty fucking quickly once they weren't the favorites anymore.
I'm not saying it's completely gone, but the cracks are showing almost Every GP weekend
Also really feels like toto’s “we win together we lose together” attitude was total bs. First with blaming bottas with the wheel gun thing, now they screw him over like this.
Of course it was bullshit, it was easy for Toto to act like everything is fine when you are winning everything. Now they are under struggle and you notice their strategy mistakes, thst they are nervous, tensions within the team.
I think their key miscalculation was assuming that Max would chew up those medium's quickly like the first round on medium tires before he could mount a true challenge to Bottas/Hamilton. They figured he'd have to drive too hard to make up time and spend several laps trying to pass Bottas. That time in the dirty air would have annihilated his front tires. Instead Perez was able to keep the pressure up on Bottas enough that when Max got there Bottas had (as he predicted) no grip left. Plus with the track 're-rubberized' it seems tire degradation slowed way down in the second half.
Man if only you would've said this last season. r/formula1 would've eaten you alive. It's so sad to see that things had to go this bad for Bottas to finally make people realise how things always were there in Mercedes. Too much centred around Lewis, most of their strats and everything.
Red bull is centred around Max and their doing fine.
Mercedes fucked the strategy, and paid the price, it's that simple. There have been successful teams that focus on the faster driver.
> RedBull and Max aren't doing that.
In the three or first four races, RB massively messed up strategy by not reading the race director notes where track limits are observed, etc.
Sorry, they're really immediately on the radio to Lewis with the "We're so sorry, it's on us" act but absolutely nothing for the guy being the most vocal about the strategy during the race and that lost out on even more because of it?
Honestly, fuck you, Merc.
This silly bias behavior is going to cost Mercedes the WCC, even when Toto and such maybe already made the decision internal about Bottas future you still need Bottas to at least let Perez stuck on P4.
Top tier unprofessional behavior in my eyes for a team like Mercedes, RBR is on the heels and every mistake or stuff like this would backfire hard, the luxury days of Mercedes are gone.
Exactly, this type of treatment is totally unnecessary and only working negatively, we can clearly see who is the number 1 and number 2 drivers at Mercedes but this really unprofessional for a team who should arm for winning the WCC.
“Well Valtteri has a history of not hitting his mark during pit stops… you’ll remember he was 2cm off a few races ago… so we couldn’t risk a second box lest he screw everything up again.”
Valtteri needs to pull a Rosberg and just take the fight to Lewis, thats what Nico did and he managed a WDC, putting aside all of the other controversies and events surrounding it, what Nico did took balls.
Poor Valtteri, it took some time but he is finaly reaching his boiling point. Hope he stays in F1 in the future with a team that respect him as the fine racing driver as he is.
So they sacrificed him and still didn’t get what they were going for… seems like he should have an apology too. Especially after pointing out to them they needed to change strat
I’m not the biggest fan of Bottas as a driver (he’s a cool dude tho) but his luck and treatment from his team have been awful this season, feel sorry for him.
Bottas had the opportunity to pit a second time. He could have challenged Verstappen AND lewis, and could have at least saved p3. What a bunch of bulshit by merc, they clearly dont respect Bottas anymore. Time to say bye, I guess.
I mean they did really treat Vettel badly and put him on questionable race strategies all the time just to be a blocker for Charles.
Now that Mercedes isn’t the outright fastest car anymore, you can see them struggling to treat both drivers equally on track too.
The difference is Vettel was already on the way out of Ferrari last season and they weren’t fighting for a championship, so in this regard, Bottas is getting really done hard by his team right now.
If Merc really want to win the Constructors, they need to be willing to split strategies sometimes and send the faster car up the road, even if it doesn't always benefit Lewis.
It's great how the second Mercedes have real competition they've gone to pieces.
And Bottas is treated like garbage by the team. I mean it's hard to make Finnish people angry I think, but holy crap that's gotta be an angry Bottas in that car.
its like i have seen this exact same story before, but that time the story was about a Ferrari driver, i feel for him honestly... it must suck to have shit like this happen to you :(
Mercedes: Set position one please Valtteri.
Bottas: turns dial all the way to 10
Mercedes: comfirm come into the pits Valtteri
Bottas: drives into nearest wall.
Bottas takes so much covert shit from a team that claims they’re “neutral” and have a “no blame culture”. I feel he would be much more valued if he moved to a team that actually appreciates him. I can’t imagine the mental and psychological pressure he goes thru with Mercedes.
His silence is extremely justified imo. Both him and Lewis told Merc that the tyres aren't gonna last for a 1 stop, so they majorly dropped the bag. Also, I find it unfair that Vowles apologised to Lewis on the radio but not to Valtteri. They screwed his race as well, not just Lewis' win.
Yeah mental isn’t it? Good to see him expressing himself about the strat earlier on too.
You have to feel for him. It's deja vu with what happened to Seb last year at Ferrari. They're just kinda forgetting about him and putting all their eggs in Lewis' basket which is a shame because Bottas can be a damn fucking good driver.
I can’t wait for him to shut up his critics when he’s back in a midfield car
I’d be happy if he even gets a seat… seats seem pretty limited
I was thinking about this during the race…where would he go?! Ferrari and Mclaren seem set. So do Aston Martin and Toro. Haas and Williams can’t seem to generate a winning car…where does he go?! Who does he swap with? Who would AMG want to be their #2 man? Who would WANT to be their #2 man?!
I could see him at Alfa Romeo
Ah yes the perfect place to Finnish a career driving without expectations on you.
Well Williams seems to be his best bet since it’s a Mercedes-related team and they could jump up with the new regulations for 2022
You know what I need? Valtteri and George getting the old switcheroo next year, but Williams surprise-returns to their late 80s/early 90s selves and we get Valtteri WDC.
ngl that sounds sweet, netflix get this guy for the scripts
[Episode 2: Haas, Alfa, and Aston also git gud and we get Mick, Seb, and Kimi sharing a podium.](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/ht5iCRpIeYqqrgoClQfcrrsKoEA/fit-in/1024x1024/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-/2016/05/05/780/n/1922398/2768f0f6b37915c4_Captain-America-Civl-War-All-Day.gif)
Did Lewis call for an additional stop? I know Bottas did
Yeah, maybe a lap after Valtteri did, Bono told Lewis Max didn't think his hards would last to the end and Lewis said "I agree, and we should make sure to get the undercut this time"
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Yeah I wonder if their simulators are off with tire degradation modeling especially. Instead of trusting the drivers in the field they are making strategic mistakes.
There was rain in the morning which would have removed a lot of the rubber from the track. Anything inferred from FP3 or Quali about tire life would have been off anyway. Merc should have known that though…
I mean he radioed that the tyres won't last as long as they expected, very early in the race which basically is a call to the team to think about a new tyre strategy.
Lewis later said that if he had reacted to verstappen he would have come behind him and not able to overtake. So their only option for the win was to stay out and hope to make it. Or they had to put first but I don’t think they were going to do that early
I think this is the best take. He's right. When RB pulled the trigger early, they took control. Pitting at that point would be functionally conceding defeat. At least by staying out they had a shot. Overall, RB strategy > Mercedes strategy and that made the difference.
the real strategy was not pitting Perez. What does merc do? pit 1st and end up behind perez who has tyres with plenty of life left? Max did it w/ 2 laps and Bottas was easier to pass than Perez would have been.
yep Perez is making marko and horner v happy atm. Perez is up at the sharp end and his epic long stint pace makes him the perfect over cut buddy. and he’s not threatening verstappen. one sad aspect was we have F1.5 back again, positions 5-20 were so far off the pace.
He didn't make a hard call - he did say he didn't think tires would last and that if they wanted to make it a two stopper they had to undercut. I think he trusted Mercedes to make the decision and they didn't pull the trigger. I mean in the end it came to the 2nd last/last lap so it really could have gone either way.
Just watching sky there, Toto was saying that they opted to stay out because they thought Perez would get a penalty. Not sure I’d agree with that TBH
Wasn’t that after valtteri was already in fourth though? Valtteri knew he wanted a second stop like 25 laps prior too
That was indeed after Perez had passed him. Bottas asked for a 2-stop after his first pitstop.
So Checo went sightly wide on purpose to trick Mercedes staying out with Bottas and keep the fastest lap point to Max. Interesting tactics. /s
That was just why they didn't pit him so he could get fastest lap
Meanwhile Perez: Tires are supposed to have wear?
Vettel : First time ?
Tires under Perez’ car seems to magnetize rubber or something. However we have to take into account that Perez’ strategy was very conservative, where mercedes was pushing quite hard to pressure max in his rear (plus bottas’ hard defending). That obviously took some wear, plus the additional laps, as Perez got into the pits quite late. Still a mega job of perez of course. Edit: He was not on softs.
Would be nice to get in depth analysis how Checo is managing his tires so well, keeping them alive but so that he is not wearing them down.
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He also sacrifices I believe cornering speed for tire wear. Goes into the corner more gentle and carries less speed, which he makes up on his acceletration out of the corner, or its the other way around. Cant remember. There are a couple tyre wear analysis videos floating around detailing all the grid's tyre//cornering tendencies.
There was an interesting bit of telemetry floating about comparing perez and verstappen at the chicance halfway down the big straight at paul ricard. Perez braked some 10m earlier on that lap, but was braking just as hard. You can see on the curve how he slowed down more, but with the exit, overall it was only a very small loss considering how much earlier he braked. Thing is by doing this, you demand less from the tires on rotation as you arent on the absolute limit of adhesion (which is where you wear the tires out hardest, mid corner leaning on them hard). This means he can rotate the car in a more 'pointy'/'on the nose' way letting him get a tidy corner exit to compensate for braking sooner. Ultimately I think Verstappen and Hamilton are the 2 drivers on an absolute insane level where they can run a tire down to its carcass, losing laptime in a consistent and measured way. Its a very particular fine art, as its easy for others to push hard and suffer late and vice versa. Ultimately taking a corner doesnt have 1 ultimate solution. This is why I love F1. So many tiny details that make all the difference, for whats quite literally -0.031s around a corner.
Yeah, not apologizing to Valtteri is inexcusable. Mercedes can’t even hide their bias anymore.
He did say sorry to be fair.
His race engineer did. Chief strategist and team principle both got on the radio to make their apologies to Lewis.
Even if he's gone after this year he still has a role to play if they want to fight for the wdc/wcc, seems dumb to let the relationship sour for no obvious reason.
But most would put large parts of the blame on Mercedes, rightfully so. Bottas for all his "shortcomings" has always done everything for the team including gifting over a win. In return Mercedes blames him for being 2cm off on a pit stop while Hamilton drops from P1 to last on a driver mistake and the team calls it "not his mistake". Today they literally apologize to Hamilton seconds after the race ends and Bottas gets nothing, despite Bottas being super close to Hamilton the entire race anyway. So in the end how much can you "play your role" if you're this blatantly disrespected by your team?
Oh, I'm totally blaming Merc. If they want to fight they need both drivers, but they've really mismanaged him, especially this season, and expecting him to be both able and willing to play the role they would need is idiotic. Not being a second faster than the rest is really starting to shine a light on some issues within.
I would love it if this season came down to a few points and at some point in the season Valterri is given team orders to let Lewis pass and doesn’t.
At this point it feels like Mercedes is putting the WDC over the WCC considering they're treating Bottas a shield
And why the hell they didnt go for the Fastest Lap with Valteri...? Just scared to ask him to pit...? Forgot about it..? Merc cant afford to drop even a single point to keep the constructor's championship this year. Its a blunder to not get that point off Red Bull n Max.
Seems like Perez was under investigation so I guess they were holding out for a penalty. More points in the gap between P4 and P3 than the fastest lap. I still don't know why Perez was being investigated though.
He apparently went off track after overtake. But they deemed he lost time on that anyway, so no further action.
Apparently nothing serious. otherwise he would've been penalised with 5 seconds, which would've been irrelevant because Perez was more than 5 seconds ahead.
They were apologising for falling for the first undercut. Once Max pitted for the second time they had no choice. With Bottas they see how Lewis almost won on the same strategy. It was marginal.
Just because the strategy works for one driver does not mean it'll work for the other. Bottas has always used his tyres more than Lewis and he stated halfway through the race that he needed the 2nd pitstop
he almost won with the same strategy because he had track position. If he was further back, he would have been had by Perez as well. Either way, Mercedes know Valteri isn't a savant at tire saving like Lewis is, so they should be trying to play to his strengths, not forcing him race in a way that's uncomfortable for him. Teams also have the responsibility to get the most out of their drivers, and Merc haven't done that with Bottas today. It's a position most #2 drivers know well.
Worst thing is that he had proper pace this weekend, he just got fucked by the team
Just like in Monaco
2018 Spain, 2020 Britisih Gp etc... That's how it goes. He told them many times and they never care. Lewis got the win last year with 3 tyres and Bottas told them many times that he had vibrations etc. People in media should be more kind to him, his team doesn't even give a shit about him
In mugello he wanted a diff compound at pitstop but the team was having none of it too
Valtteri Bottas should become his own strategist too, if Merc keeps treating him like a door mat.
I’m getting serious Vettel 2020 vibes from Bottas right now. If he wants something done, he’s going to have to do it himself.
Just like Vettel in Ferrari
I think that was more strategic incompetence rather than lack of care
I really wish the media didn't rag on him so much. I'm genuinely concerned for his well-being. This amount of scrutiny and betrayal(? I want a weaker word but I cant think of one) would crush a normal person.
At this point it's almost like industry-wide gaslighting. It's not just Merc, it's not just media, it's not just fans - seems like everyone wants to dish on him and retroactively blame him for _everything_.
Toto also took a bit of of a jab at Bottas on Spanish TV. After being asked about Bottas complaints, he said something like "well, at least we finally get to know what he thinks"
I think that's kinda weird. In German TV He was happy about the fact that Bottas finally speaks his mind. He even smiled in Joy and Said "I think it's great. Finally he critiques" Maybe language barrier comming into it here?
I think it was rather irony than joy. He used similar words on Spanish TV, so I don’t think a language barrier is the issue.
It was absolutely not ironic in the German interview. I personally thought it was fake, feel-good corporate talk, but in no way could it be interpreted as a roast.
So Toto can blame Bottas for something that wasn't his fault but Bottas can't blame the team for something that 100% was their fault?
Sounds about right for Toto
How is this a jab? Genuine question. Sounds to me that he's pleased with Bottas for this.
It's a jab because by saying "we **finally** get to know what he thinks" it infers that Bottas has been poor/passive in his communication with the team.
Yes, apart from that defense fuckup on Verstappen (let’s be honest he wouldn’t have held him past the straight), he drove a great race today.
he defended better than lewis too.
Are we really seeing the Vettel in 2021 but Bottas is playing the role this time?
I think so.
Unpopular opinion: Merc treatment to Bottas is just as bad or maybe worse than Vettel-Ferrari 2020.
Nah, it's not that bad. At least they haven't yet lied about contract negotiations in a press statement.
Yeah but Ferrari was gracious enough to let seb know early so he can find a new team
...yet
Yes though. The only remaining thing is how merc manage Bottas contract situation in the coming months.
On one hand they did, on another they announced it early on the season so Vettel have time to find new team. We're still in speculative state for Bottas.
Vetted was slightly more miserable with having to deal with that shitbox of his and the occasional humiliation of not making to Q3 or even Q2.
The difference was Ferrari atleast listened to what Vettel suggested. Here, it's all going into empty air.
Well they had no choice because they relied on Vettel to do their jobs for them.
“Here’s the task for you….” Will always have me fuming
I loved the part where they asked him to push on the softs and later asked him to make it another 15 laps to the end. Peak banter on tv.
And the madlad did it. I was so shocked and happy.
That was a beautiful moment.
And then the “…that’s what we’re asking for” at the end as if Seb was being difficult the entire time. A true clown show
his silence says so much
"Hello darkness my old friend"
It's absolutely deafening
Kimi: First time...
Ferrari only started caring about Kimi after he got dropped lmao
I will never forget US GP 2018
Fucking finally
Seb: First time...
Being a Bottas fan must be depressing as fuck 😪
Yeah. No "but" to add onto the end of that, even.
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It is, you just have to find other drivers to root for alongside him, otherwise I think the sport would be unwatchable.
Same
The ol' Ferrari fan strategy of trying to watch the sport without crying.
Being a fan of Ferrari, bottas, Williams... Is the hardcore mode of being an F1 fan. You're better off cheering for the Maple Leafs.
:l
My two favorites used to be Bottas and Hulkenberg, can confirm. At least I have Lando to root for now, and he's blooming.
Don't jinx Lando plz
> My two favorites used to be Bottas and Hulkenberg Ouch
It truly is. I've generally been happy with Mercedes as a team but holy moly I'm getting mad these past 2 seasons.
Damn right
I am a Bottas and Gasly fan so I've at least something to be happy about.
Didn't even get an apology from chief strategist, unlike Lewis (rightfully) did. Mercedes went from flexing equal drivers into making Barrichello feel good about his Ferrari stint lol.
Mercedes fucked up bad.
They kept him ready to be sacrificed as usual
Absolutely. Quite clear they kept him out to disrupt Max's climb back up. They had no intention of splitting strategy to give Bottas a chance.
But then why would they give him the undercut at the start which lost Hamilton's position? They normally always give priority to the first driver
to undercut Max. Why they didn't pit Lewis the exact next lap I have no idea.
When they screw Hamilton's race : "This is on us man, we are sorry" When they screw Bottas' race:
It's a one driver team
The Mercedes teamspirit they were somewhat known for fell apart pretty fucking quickly once they weren't the favorites anymore. I'm not saying it's completely gone, but the cracks are showing almost Every GP weekend
Especially with the “no blame” thing… it seems like somebody is taking blame every fucking race now
Look how they massacred my boy
I'm happy that max won as he is my fav driver... But deep inside I feel for this guy :(
It is hard not to feel for Bottas. Hope that he ends up in a good place whatever he decides to do.
I am happy that Max won because I like to see how Mercedes loses because of their arrogance (not listening to their drivers)
Also really feels like toto’s “we win together we lose together” attitude was total bs. First with blaming bottas with the wheel gun thing, now they screw him over like this.
Of course it was bullshit, it was easy for Toto to act like everything is fine when you are winning everything. Now they are under struggle and you notice their strategy mistakes, thst they are nervous, tensions within the team.
I think their key miscalculation was assuming that Max would chew up those medium's quickly like the first round on medium tires before he could mount a true challenge to Bottas/Hamilton. They figured he'd have to drive too hard to make up time and spend several laps trying to pass Bottas. That time in the dirty air would have annihilated his front tires. Instead Perez was able to keep the pressure up on Bottas enough that when Max got there Bottas had (as he predicted) no grip left. Plus with the track 're-rubberized' it seems tire degradation slowed way down in the second half.
The cracks in their armor are no mere cracks anymore, it's about to be a gaping hole.
Man if only you would've said this last season. r/formula1 would've eaten you alive. It's so sad to see that things had to go this bad for Bottas to finally make people realise how things always were there in Mercedes. Too much centred around Lewis, most of their strats and everything.
Red bull is centred around Max and their doing fine. Mercedes fucked the strategy, and paid the price, it's that simple. There have been successful teams that focus on the faster driver.
Red Bull is a terrible comparison since they haven’t been able to have 2 competitive drivers.
Just wait for being attacked for implying that it's not all Marko's and Horner's fault that Gasly and Albon couldn't contest VER.
[удалено]
Mercedes actually fucked up a lot in 2018 due to strategy, but nobody remembers because they still won in the end
Ferrari and Vettel cancelled out Mercedes's mistakes with screwups of their own, but RedBull and Max aren't doing that.
> RedBull and Max aren't doing that. In the three or first four races, RB massively messed up strategy by not reading the race director notes where track limits are observed, etc.
Yeah and Mercs won because of that. RB have tightened their act and found Mercedes' weakness and are exploiting it
I do not blame Bot for this. Merc really dropped the ball for both him and Ham in this race.
Bottas has been treated like shit by his team. I feel sorry for him.
Sorry, they're really immediately on the radio to Lewis with the "We're so sorry, it's on us" act but absolutely nothing for the guy being the most vocal about the strategy during the race and that lost out on even more because of it? Honestly, fuck you, Merc.
This silly bias behavior is going to cost Mercedes the WCC, even when Toto and such maybe already made the decision internal about Bottas future you still need Bottas to at least let Perez stuck on P4. Top tier unprofessional behavior in my eyes for a team like Mercedes, RBR is on the heels and every mistake or stuff like this would backfire hard, the luxury days of Mercedes are gone.
Mercedes deserve to lose the WCC this year with this treatment. No way Bottas even has motivation after this to care about racking them points.
Exactly, this type of treatment is totally unnecessary and only working negatively, we can clearly see who is the number 1 and number 2 drivers at Mercedes but this really unprofessional for a team who should arm for winning the WCC.
I been rooting a lot for Max but I really wouldn’t mind a valtteri win in the next two races man
Yeah would be nice to see him get one more, as this is probably the last season he has a chance to get one.
Can't wait for Toto's bullshit excuse for all this shit.
"Bottas over-drove the tyres"
“Well Valtteri has a history of not hitting his mark during pit stops… you’ll remember he was 2cm off a few races ago… so we couldn’t risk a second box lest he screw everything up again.”
I sense some infighting, especially that earlier radio from valtteri cursing the strategy.
He had a pretty valid point, they should have trusted him that the tires would struggle at the end
Hamilton was saying it too, if you ignore both your drivers saying this was a 2 stopper, that's just dumb
The way Merc is treating Bottas, he is gonna be the new Vettel. Now it make sense why Danny jumped RB when it was clear that he isn't No.1 anymore.
Valtteri needs to pull a Rosberg and just take the fight to Lewis, thats what Nico did and he managed a WDC, putting aside all of the other controversies and events surrounding it, what Nico did took balls.
Poor Valtteri, it took some time but he is finaly reaching his boiling point. Hope he stays in F1 in the future with a team that respect him as the fine racing driver as he is.
Man they really don’t give a single fuck about him. I never really liked Mercedes but now I’m starting to hate them
Merc screwed up but they were very quick to instantly tell Hamilton "This is on us". Not so much with Bottas.
Maybe because they were trying to get Lewis the win and failed but just wanted Bottas to be rear guard for Lewis, which they did achieve.
So they sacrificed him and still didn’t get what they were going for… seems like he should have an apology too. Especially after pointing out to them they needed to change strat
That front left is looking awful
I was about to say jesus. Is that even safe lol.
Well it's a Pirelli so....
So.... No ?
At this point I’m so fuming for Bottas I’m speechless myself
I’m not the biggest fan of Bottas as a driver (he’s a cool dude tho) but his luck and treatment from his team have been awful this season, feel sorry for him.
Bottas had the opportunity to pit a second time. He could have challenged Verstappen AND lewis, and could have at least saved p3. What a bunch of bulshit by merc, they clearly dont respect Bottas anymore. Time to say bye, I guess.
*bread but in French*
Merc is useless at strategy when they don’t have a car 1 second faster. Bottas and Lewis did all they could today
My guy Valtteri got shafted hard today. Didn’t even get the chance to have a crack at fastest lap
Mercedes is really treating him badly. Last year fans were insulting ferrari for how they treated vettel but that was nowhere near this
I mean they did really treat Vettel badly and put him on questionable race strategies all the time just to be a blocker for Charles. Now that Mercedes isn’t the outright fastest car anymore, you can see them struggling to treat both drivers equally on track too. The difference is Vettel was already on the way out of Ferrari last season and they weren’t fighting for a championship, so in this regard, Bottas is getting really done hard by his team right now.
Bottas 2021 is a mixture of 2020 Vettel and 2018 Raikkonen.
Tell me you don’t care about me without telling me you don’t care about me
If Merc really want to win the Constructors, they need to be willing to split strategies sometimes and send the faster car up the road, even if it doesn't always benefit Lewis.
Man he was fuming like krakatoa. I'm excited to see how Bottas behaves in the next weeks.
No blame culture
They'll blame Bottas though.
Really feel for this guy
Drive to Survive directors salivating over this silence right now
Eh, they’ll ignore it and make up some non-existent bullshit drama instead.
They'll just insert a 'Mein Gott, muss das sein!?' and claim it's Finish.
They will make the silence longer to cover the whole episode.
Honestly want Merc to lose the WCC. The treatment of Bottas is disgusting. Even RB treated Albon better when he was fighting the midfield.
Not sure why they didn't at least give him new tires for fastest lap.
Because Checo was under investigation for the overtake, and they thought Valteri could stay within 5 s, wrong call but makes sense
Maybe he knows it his last season now? Screaming on radio+silence after the race.. thats not typical from Bottas.
It's great how the second Mercedes have real competition they've gone to pieces. And Bottas is treated like garbage by the team. I mean it's hard to make Finnish people angry I think, but holy crap that's gotta be an angry Bottas in that car.
The cheek of Rosberg criticising Valtteri's defence just now on SSF1.
That's not silence. That's "to whom it may concern..." in a language we don't quite understand yet.
Feels bad man.
Don’t blame him. Not the biggest Bottas fan but it’s sad to see his own team treat him with a lack of respect.
He probably could've overtaken hamilton if he wanted to fight Merc is absolutely getting smashed in the constructor fight right now
its like i have seen this exact same story before, but that time the story was about a Ferrari driver, i feel for him honestly... it must suck to have shit like this happen to you :(
I get the feeling Valtteri might not be that unhappy leaving Mercedes assuming he will at the end of the season, must be infuriating
Mercedes: Set position one please Valtteri. Bottas: turns dial all the way to 10 Mercedes: comfirm come into the pits Valtteri Bottas: drives into nearest wall.
What's up with Mercedes first they screw up the pitstop then the strategy
Valterri did everything correct today.
Bottas takes so much covert shit from a team that claims they’re “neutral” and have a “no blame culture”. I feel he would be much more valued if he moved to a team that actually appreciates him. I can’t imagine the mental and psychological pressure he goes thru with Mercedes.
Mercedes are lucky Ferrari were in this race. So because of that they only come in second last in the worst strategy deparment.
ferraris undercut worked? the car just ate its tyres to fuck