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'No reason' for Bottas to leave Williams - Wolff

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Toto Wolff says "there is no reason" for Valtteri Bottas to leave Williams and join Ferrari next season.

Bottas has been linked with a move to replace Kimi Raikkonen at Maranello, with Ferrari having approached Williams and reportedly agreeing a fee between the teams. Wolff has previously looked after Bottas' career, and while he says he takes a backseat role now he does not believe the Finn should be looking to leave Williams.

"Since I took over the reins of the Mercedes team I left other activities to other people," Wolff told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "So at this time I am only an 'investor' in Bottas. He is a good guy who can be tempting to many, but Williams is the third force in the league, aspires to go to the podium at every race and there is no reason to leave."

With Williams having an option to extend Bottas' contract in to next year - which caused Ferrari to make an offer for his services - Wolff says his former team is well within its rights to seek significant compensation.

"I find it legitimate to consider that Williams has assumed the risk of taking [Bottas] when he was young and had not yet shown his value. Now the financial effort may be covered by selling him to other teams."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.