Bottas hints relationship with Hamilton could sour in title race

Valtteri Bottas has hinted that his good-natured relationship with Lewis Hamilton could come under threat after he slashed the deficit to his Mercedes team-mate in the championship.

Hamilton, who finished only fourth at the Russian Grand Prix as he mysteriously struggled for pace, was among the first to congratulate Bottas after he held off Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to register his maiden win in Formula One.

The 32-year-old Briton hugged Bottas in parc ferme, and latterly managed a smile and clenched fist for the cameras as Mercedes celebrated the Finn’s victory in front of their garage after the race.

Bottas’s victory, however, has taken him to within 10 points of his team-mate, and in doing so, diminished any suggestion that the Mercedes new boy will simply be an able deputy to Hamilton this year.

“Lewis said he was happy for me which was very nice from him,” Bottas said. “We have been able to be very professional so far.

“If he has been in front of me I tell him honestly that he has done a great job, and vice versa. It is good to see that from a threetime world champion. The Ferrari drivers were saying well done, too.

“But it is going to be a long year, and at some point things might get a bit more tricky and tight. When it comes to the championship fight, there might be less talking and more fighting on track.”

Bottas was hired as a remedy to the fractious atmosphere created at Mercedes following the toxicity of Hamilton’s rivalry with Nico Rosberg.

But Bottas’s early-season form, in which he has now out-qualified Hamilton at successive grands prix before delivering a crushing victory over the Briton in Russia – the gap on track was an eyewatering half-a-minute – may provide Mercedes with a new headache.

Lewis Hamilton joined Valtteri Bottas on the podium in Russia.