Coulthard urges Bottas to 'believe in himself'

Former F1 driver David Coulthard believes Valtteri Bottas needs to pull out all the stops and 'work hard' to challenge team mate Lewis Hamilton.

After a few rounds of observation and getting acquainted with his new environment earlier this year at Mercedes, Bottas came on strong and won in Russia and then again in Austria.

Unfortunately, the end of the summer was marked by a dip in performance as the Finn struggled to extract the most of his Mercedes, while Hamilton collected four wins in five races.

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"I experienced the same sort of difficult times when I was at McLaren with Mika (Hakkinen)," Coulthard Finland's Ilta Sanomat newspaper.

"Valtteri just needs to work hard, find out where the gap to Lewis is and believe that he will be able to close it," the Scot added.

"Valtteri is a quick and talented driver," Coulthard continued.

"As a person he is quiet and reserved, but he needs to think about his races and everything that brought him to this point and believe in himself.

"At the same time we also have to realise that he has one of the fastest ever drivers as his teammate."

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