Valtteri Bottas: It's the quiet ones you have to look out for

Valtteri Bottas was arguably the below-the-radar star of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, maximising the Williams in both qualifying and race, keeping the slightly faster Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel within sight and unflappably soaking up many laps of pressure from the older-spec Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.

It’s precisely this combination of maximising a situation and minimising fuss that has him on the radar of both Mercedes and Ferrari as their possible future. There’s real steel behind his quiet, undemonstrative persona that allows him to invariably be error-free under even the sort of pressure that Raikkonen was applying for lap after lap.

That calm, dispassionate core means that by default he never arouses the sort of controversy that can impinge upon a team’s performance, something highly valued at Ferrari in particular. But it’s also part of the reason his skills are not more widely recognised by the fans. There is no ‘story’ to Bottas, nothing that attracts media attention and even when his performances beg questions – such as why team-mate Felipe Massa was out-performing him in the early-season races – his answers are rarely quote-worthy. 

Actually, the muscle tear he suffered in Melbourne qualifying compromised his subsequent races much more than he was admitting. For several weeks afterwards he was wearing ice packs around the injured area when not at the track. But at Barcelona he appeared to be at something close to his best once more. Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle voiced over the lap that put Bottas fourth on the grid and came back marvelling at the composure, control and precision of it. His racing laps were relentless and again displayed his uncanny feel for getting the best from delicate tyres. His talent doesn’t leap up and shout in the way of Lewis Hamilton’s or Fernando Alonso’s, but he is effortlessly on top of every aspect of what the job demands and it appears to take next to nothing out of him.

Although Williams has an option on his services into 2016 and fully intends to take it up, Ferrari could undoubtedly raise the money required to buy out that option if required.

Although it was only a few weeks ago that Maurzio Arrivabene was saying that he fully expected to extend Raikkonen’s contract (which expires at the end of this year), now that negotiations between Ferrari and Raikkonen’s manager Steve Robertson are tentatively underway, it seems Arrivabene wants to have other options available. Then there’s the question of Lewis Hamilton who, whilst still expected to re-sign with Mercedes anytime soon, continues to be nudged in Ferrari’s direction by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. Each of these ambiguous situations directly impact Bottas’s future. For 2016, he could be in any one of the three fastest teams of 2015 - Mercedes, Ferrari or Williams.

Hamilton and Alonso remain the two biggest box office draws and in his role of promoter Bernie would like to see each of them at new teams next year. Bottas is absolutely not box office in any way. His achievements do not yet compare and even if they did his persona would not lend itself to promotion. It’s not as if he can even play the ‘want no part of it’ outsider role that makes Raikkonen so hugely popular with the fans. Even that would generate too much attention for Bottas’ taste.

His future is out of his hands and depends upon circumstances beyond just his own performances, but now that is returning to full fitness we are almost certainly going to see further drives that justify the very serious interest of the very top teams.

MH