F1 News

2018 wasn't all Bottas's fault

2018 wasn't all Bottas's fault

06-12-2018 15:34

2018 wasn’t Valtteri Bottas’ finest season as he failed to land a single first place finish despite getting three in 2017.

The Finn was often forced to play more of a support role as Lewis Hamilton won 11 races.

However, his compatriot and former F1 driver Mika Salo feels the Mercedes driver is being too hard on himself after he admitted his campaign had fallen well short of expectations.

"At least he has identified what were the weak points for him and will work in the winter so that they are not there next year," Salo told Finland's MTV.

"Valtteri has no choice but to reset completely and start again next year.

"Pretty much everything went wrong this year," he added.

"Baku was really bad. If not for what happened he would have led the championship and who knows how the season would have gone after that."

Bottas suffered a puncture on the penultimate lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and Salo proved how Baku was just on example of how 2018 was not all Bottas’ fault.

"There were so many little things that were just bad luck, not anything that Valtteri did badly. But they surely affected him on the mental side pretty badly," he said.