F1 | Bottas and the adventure in Mercedes without regrets: "I'm proud, I gave everything"

The next four races of the season will also be Valtteri Bottas' last with Mercedes. In fact, after five years, the Finn will say goodbye to the Stella team to embrace the Alfa Romeo project where he will be the top driver of the Hinwil team. Number 77, who arrived in Brackley in January 2017 to replace the then world champion Nico Rosberg who decided to hang up his helmet, will thus close a very important experience where he was an integral part of a team that has been dominating the scene since advent of the hybrid era.

Bottas, interviewed by the official Formula 1 podcast Beyond The Grid, retraced the moments spent in Mercedes having no regrets for what his journey in "grey" was.

"I am proud and certainly, knowing that I will go to another team, I have had time to reflect on the situation from time to time because we have achieved important victories together – declared Bottas – To win four constructors' championships in a row, now hopefully also the fifth, you need two good drivers. If we look at me and Lewis as teammates… the amount of points, victories and podiums we have put together, it is difficult for myself to name a better team. I gave everything I had". 

At Alfa Romeo Bottas signed a multi-year contract, a completely different situation from that of Mercedes where the renewal is always annual. A detail, the latter, which in any case has marked much of the career of the current standard bearer of the Star: "Obviously you try to convince yourself that it doesn't influence and try to block out any negative thoughts, but when there is a lot of noise, which can happen in Formula 1, it certainly doesn't help. There is a distraction, but you try to minimize it. Yes, I think there were some times where I wasn't really in an easy situation with contracts and with rumors. Wolff thinks pressure is good for me, I agree for a certain period of time it's good and can get more out of you, but if you have pressure for nine years of your Formula 1 career, year after year, it starts to eat you from the inside out, you know?”.

By going to Alfa Romeo, the chances of fighting for important goals will clearly be significantly reduced compared to Mercedes, where he never managed to seriously worry Hamilton by fighting for the title: "Since I was a kid, it's the goal, it's the dream. It's been very present in my mind. In a sense it seems like a failure that he wasn't able to achieve this with Mercedes. But on the other hand I gave everything. It wasn't supposed to happen, at least for now"