Bojan Vrbnjak
Bottas ended his tenure at the end of last season Mercedes, for which he drove 101 races. Even before the end of the championship, he announced that he would be moving to the team for this season Alfa Romeo, where he replaced Kimi Raikkonen.
This move will Finn gave the opportunity to leads the project, as the team wants to advance up the ladder, trying to use it to their advantage new rules, as they stopped developing the current car last year at the beginning of the season and focused all their efforts on 2022. In an interview with colleagues from GP Fans, Yippee Vasseur said: “We have a long-term relationship. For me, he raced in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, something like that. We stayed in touch because I’ve been close to family for the last 15 years, but I’ve been crystal clear, and he’s smart enough to understand that we can’t offer him those things that Mercedes put on his desk."
French continues: “The fight for pole position in Bahrain is not a topic at all. Of course, the goal is always to do a good job, but I think the most important thing for him in the career phase is to be in the center of the team and I hope Mercedes does not resent that he was always in the shadow of Lewis, but if you are in Mercedes, you are in the shadows Lewis. If you are in Red Bullu, you’re in the shadow of Max and if you look at the racers in the last ten or better six years, it was Gasly, Albon and now it’s Perez. Being a teammate of Max or Lewis is very difficult, I don’t think it was too important for Valtteri to be a leader in this."
Bottas will, as is well known, race together with the Chinese rookie in Formula 1 this year Guanyu Zhou, in doing so Vasseur expects that the experience of the 32-year-old Finn will help in the introduction of the Formula 2 star. "Valtteri is coming with his great Formula 1 experience, with a speed that I think was very strong in the second half of last season. Probably also because he had a clear view of what he wanted to do in the future and was probably more relaxed. So I hope we can develop something like that. I am sure it will be so because I have known him for a very long time and we are on the same page."
