Bottas 'amazed' not to have won yet in 2018

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Valtteri Bottas has admitted that he's not happy to be without a Grand Prix race win so far in 2018.

The Finn has been runner-up five times so far, but has failed to reach the top step. By comparison, his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton took his sixth win of the season last time out at Monza.

After winning three races last year, the 29-year-old admitted that he wasn't satisfied with how his second year at Brackley was shaping up.

"I really want to win races, that’s why I’m here," he said.

“For me, it’s quite disappointing and amazing that I haven’t won a race this year,” he added. “It’s been quite close many times, especially in the first third of the season."

Bottas: Monza strategy 'good for me, and good for Lewis'

The closest near-miss was surely in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where a seemingly certain win was thwarted by a late-race puncture.

It means that Bottas is now 97 points behind Hamilton in the championship standing, and all but certain to be formally asked to play a supporting role as 'wingman' for the remainder of the season until the title battle is decided.

However, Bottas denied that this hurt his chances of being able to win a race in the remaining seven events of 2018.

“I don’t think the only way the next few races is that Lewis is secure in the title," he insisted. "If I have a good pace, a good qualifying, I’m strong in the race, I think I can definitely win.

"But for sure it’s a bit more simple if Lewis secures the title," he conceded.

The next race is Singapore, which has previously been viewed as a 'bogey' circuit for Mercedes. However the team won there in 2017 after the two Ferrari drivers collided at the start.

“You never know. You saw what happened last year!" said Bottas. "It’s racing, and we go there with the mindset that anything can happen."

The current season is showing that expectations can no longer be relied upon when it comes to predicting how races will turn out.

"Hopefully we can be more competitive there than we were last year, compared to other teams. It is tricky at the moment."

“The Ferrari is quick everywhere. Red Bull will be quick in Singapore. For us, we don’t really know how competitive we are going to be.

"But we are going to go there, try to get more points than Ferrari," he pledged.

"It is very close. There is not much in the cars, so it definitely will be interesting seeing in Singapore if we have made improvements for that kind of track.

"I think all the tracks coming up it really depends how good the upgrades we are bringing are going to be, and which upgrade they are going to bring," he suggested. "Any small gain is going to be a big benefit.”

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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.