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Bottasvowsto comebackstronger
Valtteri Bottas has vowed to adopt a “drive like I stole it” attitude next year as he fights for his Mercedes future after a difficult 2018 Formula 1 season.
Having ended this year without a win, Bottas has openly admitted that the season just gone has been his most disappointing in grand prix racing.
With Esteban Ocon waiting in the wings at Mercedes as its reserve, Bottas – whose current contract only covers 2019 – says his plan for next year is to go on an all-out attack to prove how good he is.
“This sport is funny, you never know what happens in the future,” he said. “But I think the right mentality for me to approach next year is like I have nothing to lose.
“I just want to go for it and drive like I stole it, like it’s my last race, last day ever. That’s a good plan.”
Bottas won three races in his first season with Mercedes in 2017, but although this year was worse in terms of results, and he only finished fifth in the final standings, he is certain his form improved and he was closer to titlewinning team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
“What we’ve analysed as a team and what we spoke about with the guys is qualifying pace and race pace, compared to my team-mate, has been better this year on average, which is positive, but the results haven’t,” Bottas said.
“We need to analyse why the results weren’t there. Obviously sometimes it was unlucky, sometimes were different reasons.
“But I think performance-wise this year was better, but results-wise last year was better.”
Bottas remains adamant he has the speed and potential to beat Hamilton.
“In this sport, when you’re kind of sometimes thinking of yourself, you’re thinking all kinds of different things,” said Bottas.
“The main thing is always the thought that I’ve got to be the strongest, and I’ve never told myself that I’m not good enough to do this.
“Even though I feel disappointed for the season, I know that I can do much more than what this season proves, and that is the main thing.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says Bottas wants to “disappear” back home for the winter to help recover from his disappointing campaign.
“He said to me that he just wants to disappear back home, recharge the battery,” said Wolff. “Forget, recover and recuperate, and then come back next year. It has just been very long. I can understand his frustrations.”
Wolff believes that Bottas’s season fell apart once it became clear that he was no longer in championship contention.
“Speaking with the drivers, once the championship opportunity has been taken away, there is a drop,” he said. “And I think we’ve seen that this year.”