F1 | Bottas' admission: "At the end of 2018 I seriously thought about quitting"

What was told in the Motor Sport Magazine podcast is a Valtteri Bottas in the round. Today at Alfa Romeo the driver expressed everything he experienced in Mercedes, focusing in particular on the 2018 and 2019 seasons when, by his own admission, he risked quitting Formula 1 for a series of reasons . The Finn is now happy to have continued, as demonstrated by the great results with Alfa Romeo.

“At the end of 2018 I risked quitting – Bottas admitted. I couldn't beat Lewis in those two years and I didn't understand why. Towards the end of that year I really struggled and it wasn't fun at all: in the last few races I suffered a lot, because Formula 1 should be enjoyed, but for me it wasn't like that, so in the winter break I thought about a lot of things. The human mind is strange, sometimes it goes to dark places: you lose the joy in things, and this happened to me with Formula 1, I didn't want to race anymore, I was almost angry with this world. I needed some free time and to think things through, and I realized that I actually still had a lot of opportunities ahead of me in this sport, so I would be a fool to give up."

“I therefore decided to take a break, I went to South America and tried not to think about Formula 1, I had to rediscover the will, motivation and joy for this sport. It was like a click, something that started inside me, and in January I decided to continue and rediscover the joy of driving. The results were very positive and 2019 was the best year of my career, especially against Lewis: I won many races and was also leading the championship, I felt strong, but his consistency of performance was incredible and I I couldn't match it. He's dominant and it's hard to beat him, I could never really tackle him, he was one with the team, and then it was Lewis, everyone looked up to him. Mercedes, looking back, was a great school for me: I learned a lot about myself, I'm not so hard anymore, I'm really happy to have had this great experience."