Bottas have secret plan to beat Hami next season
Sao Paulo: Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas has a plan to beat Formula One champion and Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton next season, but will not share it.
Bottas is assured of second place in the championship, his best finish yet, but recognizes he needs more consistency even after winning four races this year.
Bottas also says he needs to make fewer mistakes than Hamilton to win his first F1 title.
“I have a plan for next year, but I am not willing to share it, so we will find out,” Bottas said Thursday at the Brazilian Grand Prix. “For sure I have plans to find the different ways of how I want to achieve my goal, which is ultimately the championship. That means beating my teammate, but also many other drivers.”
“If I perform at the level I want, that will normally upset the other side of the garage a little bit,” the 30year-old driver added.
Bottas says he is confident for the 2020 season because of the work he has recently done with his team.
“I am really starting to see the work with the engineers and myself driving wise,” Bottas said. “I always preferred to do the talking on the track and, if I am able to keep up my performance and put all the energy I have into my performance, that is the best for me.”
Bottas won the previous race, in the United States this month, but Hamilton clinched his sixth world title there with two races to spare by placing second.
The usually calm Bottas sounded upset when compared to former Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, who won the 2016 F1 title with Hamilton as his main challenger.
“I am slightly already bored about that question because every driver is individual. I am me, I am not Nico,” Bottas said.