Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes Support Driver or Equal Footing With Hamilton?

[Coffer]

Kimi had problems too (yet again) but nobody is saying Kimi needs to go.

Are we looking in different places? Kimi is being criticized endlessly, mostly even too much given that he was a match for Bottas in the race.

Lets not forget he hasn't been on the podium this year. Both Ham/Vett have each race and Bottas has on 2 out of 3.

Kimi may be underperforming, but that is still entirely because Vettel is carrying that car way above where it should be (P3). Given how difficult it is to overtake now and how slow the Ferrari still is in a straight line, you can't exactly fault Kimi for not being up there with the clear current best driver on the grid.

If you really think that the Sauber is the worst car on the grid you should rewatch the race and check the results.

Clearly you must've watched Bahrain 2015 instead, because the Sauber was indeed the clear worst car. Wehrlein might not be an outright god tier driver or anything of the sort, but he still humiliated Alonso on a 1-sto--

with Alonso being the man of the race for me

cringe

 

[hitm4k3r]

Are we looking in different places? Kimi is being criticized endlessly, mostly even too much given that he was a match for Bottas in the race.


Kimi may be underperforming, but that is still entirely because Vettel is carrying that car way above where it should be (P3). Given how difficult it is to overtake now and how slow the Ferrari still is in a straight line, you can't exactly fault Kimi for not being up there with the clear current best driver on the grid.


Clearly you must've watched Bahrain 2015 instead, because the Sauber was indeed the clear worst car. Wehrlein might not be an outright god tier driver or anything of the sort, but he still humiliated Alonso on a 1-sto--

cringe

What Alonso is showing is far above of what the McLaren is capable of. That car has zero straightline speed, zero power and zero reliability, so you have to do all the overtaking in the corners using opportunistic approaches. And that's exactly what he did so well with him being a sitting duck on the straights. If you didn't notice this, then we clearly watched two different races. The reason why Wehrlein could overtake Alonso, aswell as Kvyat and Palmer is pretty simple. Those three guys were so damn busy with battling each other, so that he could stay in touch with them making his strategy work for him. And at the end Alonso had to retire anyway because of the McLaren being a so much better car. If you want to make comparisons between drivers, maybe we should place Wehrlein in the McLaren. Anyway, if you think that Wehlein is so much better I will let you believe it

 

[Mr Latte]

Are we looking in different places? Kimi is being criticized endlessly, mostly even too much given that he was a match for Bottas in the race.


Kimi may be underperforming, but that is still entirely because Vettel is carrying that car way above where it should be (P3). Given how difficult it is to overtake now and how slow the Ferrari still is in a straight line, you can't exactly fault Kimi for not being up there with the clear current best driver on the grid.

I simply stated facts, Kimi isnt performing well in general consistency with speed or with impressive overtakes. Your welcome to look up data of his fastest laps and time behind the race winner for the 3 races we have and compare to his teammate in the same car or others.

Lets stick to Bottas, Kimi was used as an example to show its not only Bottas that is underperforming.
Bottas however has moved to a new team environment and different car, lets see how he handles the pressure.

 

[Allan Ramsbottom]

You can't expect a guy to step into a brand new car...with a brand new team...with limited testing and right off the bat, be 'Nico Rosberg's equivalent in three races.

Hamilton did...

 

[Erwin Greven]

Hamilton won his first GP at the sixth round. Same with his first pole.

 

[paracletus]

These are, allegedly the best drivers in the world - they should be able to jump into anything and set the tarmac on fire
Just a bad race for VB is all. Better luck next time.

 

[Kevin Pheiffer]

This about Hamilton.....

An unnamed current F1 driver:

Hamilton lacks the bite. You can only rely on talent alone when you have a car that is a second faster.

Three tenths per lap is not enough to beat a Vettel.