Bottas: 2020 is down to me

By his own admission, Valtteri Bottas has not had the best year of his career in 2018. Plagued by bad luck and team orders, the Finn could have had three or four race wins by this stage in the season, yet he has zero.

Bottas has instead been left to play the team game and help Lewis Hamilton win the title after it became apparent the championship race was between Bottas’ team mate and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, a race that could be over this weekend.

Despite not winning a single race and being over 120 points behind Hamilton in the championship, Bottas managed to earn himself a contract with Mercedes for the 2019 season.

However, with Esteban Ocon waiting in the wings and plenty of other options for the Silver Arrows, Bottas knows he has to impress if he wants to remain at the team beyond his three year stay.

He said: “If I perform the way I am personally expecting and the team is expecting then everything is good.

“If I don’t perform for some reason then that’s going to be my fault then I could be under pressure but if things go the way I want, the way I plan, there’s no worries.

“I think it’s going to be completely up to me.”