Bottas knows Mercedes are aware of his quality

Valtteri Bottas is thankful his team Mercedes are aware of his strong performances this season despite winless run.

The Finnish driver has had some very bad luck this season.

Bottas missed out on wins in China and Azerbaijan due to a safety car and a late puncture.

Austria saw a retirement for Bottas too, with a late mechanical failure, despite being on pole.

Bottas is out of contract at the end of the season and he came into 2018 knowing that he had to impress Mercedes.

"It puts me in a decent place this year that even though I've not scored the points I would have wanted, I have always performed at the level the team requires me to do," Bottas explained to Autosport.

"I'm more or less on the level I want personally.

"That's a good thing even though the team sees in great detail how I perform every week.

"Having a few wins never does anything bad for you for the future but at least the team knows exactly how I'm performing and the direction I'm going with my improvement."

Bottas also believes that he's narrowed the gap between him and his team mate, Lewis Hamilton.

"I've felt I have been able to improve my weaknesses, and strengths," Bottas claimed.

"Overall performance has just been closer, there have been less bigger gaps between me and Lewis.

"No matter if the car's been good to drive or very difficult to drive, I feel I've been able to extract what there is and it's been quite close."