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Of the 12 races following the Austrian GP retirement, Lewis dropped 37 of the 300 available. No one other than Lewis had a good second half of the season. It is funny how people are conveniently forgetting that Vettel imploded despite a huge championship lead, yet Bottas is the disappointment

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I wouldn't say "the" disappointment, "a" disappointment sounds better - one doesn't exclude the other. In this case, I believe Vettel meltdown was discussed as the title battle was going. Once this battle got over, people focused on Bottas who still had a bit of his reputation at stake by being in the position of finishing the championship behind a driver with a somewhat slower car.

But again, if that is your assessment you’re ignoring the facts of the what actually happened during the full season. By using that way of thinking the we should be disappointed with Ricciardo.

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Bottas is just a boring driver.

Rosberg was too, until he realised he had to become an asshole if he wanted to have a shot at the title.

I see your point, but I think it's quite relative. As per Ricciardo, it's a weird season and all the problems he had and his decision to leave the team makes it difficult to assess his season. All this can even have masked what would be a massive defeat to Verstappen even in more common circunstances.

As per Bottas, obviously just the swap with Lewis in Russia would be enough to put him in third in drivers championship, he had a big quota of bad luck too (Azerbaijan and France) but he also had some bad performances that put him in this situation (like finishing behind Vettel in USA). And I think he leaves a clear impression that he could have delivered more than what he delivered this season.

Indeed. That is the point. However Bottas had more bad luck and other better performances than he’s given credit for... he was the only driver to challenge Seb in Bahrain, had China sewn up until the SC, was Seb’s closest challenger in Canada (whole Lewis could only manage 5th) and was a victory contender at Silverstone.

To say his season is a disappointment is misguided and unjust. Yes he had poor races at the tail end of the season, yet so did all the other top drivers bar Lewis and let’s remember than Lewis had a few mediocre races early on.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
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http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I'm really not sure what more people were expecting from Bottas this season. I mean yeah he had a mediocre tail end to the season. But at the end of the day he's a number two driver and would've finished a strong third in the championship behind the two title contenders if he had secured those wins in Azerbaijan and Russia (both on merit) and a likely podium in France. Can't really ask for much more than that and I think Mercedes are probably fine with him as Lewis' wingman.

the problem with Bottas is that he just seemed too apathetic in the second half of the season, having by far the best car at that moment

whiles Lewis did what he usually does, he didn't delivered. Mercedes has the potential to put both cars in contention and yet favors a driver that doesn't need favouring

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FTFY

Imagine if Riccardo had got the Merc or Ferrari seat next year
Fireworks...

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No fix needed, although I don't disagree with you.





It was was it? He was was he? So what happened with Ferrari / Seb at Hockenheim, and Hungary, and Spa, and Monza? What about USA, Mexico, Brazil? In those races Mercedes wasn't the best car. But thanks to luck and good judgement Lewis performed better than anyone across that period. Vettel, Kimi, Bottas, Max and Ricciardo all had poor second halves by comparison.

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all i want is Mercedes to stop winning, one season only please

this one was a disappointment every two weeks

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Finn here. Most of Finland thinks that Bottas is not a world champion material and see him boring as fuck.

It's like Bottas adopted Kimi's blandness in commentary but forgot that there's actually a great, funny and smart individual behind all those bland comments. Bottas is not doing miracles on track and has actually damaged his countryman many times during his time in the limelight. People in Finland will remember Bottas as a goon who robbed a victory from Kimi in front of Tifosi. That's going to be his hallmark achievement.

From ten years today people will see these two at the airport, huge crowd will go to see Kimi while the airport staff will give Kimi's luggage to Valtteri. Bottas will then have his stone cold look on his face and only then realize what he did wrong.

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Even though Bottas had some bad luck earlier in the season, Mercedes had the best car for most of the year. To not finish second or third in the championship is a poor result, particularly with the mistakes from Vettel and Ferrari, and the reliability issues of Red Bull.

Hamilton has been ridiculously strong in the second half of the season, which perhaps made Bottas look worse than he was, but he has to be beating Kimi and Max in the championship.

The race was actually pretty boring, so stock standard really.

Sorry Kals, can't quite muster the same enthusiasm for Bottas that you can. I can't help but draw comparisons with Patrese in 1992 against Mansell at Williams and Webber in 2011 against Vettel.

One guy just doing what they want seemingly at will, while the other guy in the same machinery being mediocre at best. The worrying thing for me about Bottas is just how far off the pace he has been to Hamilton this year, he has massively regressed in my opinion. Yes some bad luck has come his way, but at no stage this year save for Baku, have I felt like he was going to win, or even challenge for the win. He has just been so underwhelming this year.

Not enthusiasm, just focusing on the facts. Agree with your comparisons though.

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seY

Not sure how much of this is propaganda, but both Charlie and Renault's Marcin Budkowski (who used to work at the FIA) said that Hulk wasn't 'trapped' in any real sense, and that protocol when they know the driver isn't hurt is to right the car and then get them out. Budkowski added that, had the fire not been controlled so easily, he probably would have been told to get out and that it would have been possible. He further added that he expected Hulk himself would disagree

Another interesting little fact from Charlie was that certain types of accident cause the driver's radio to automatically route through Race Control so that they know how the driver is - that's quite a clever idea.

1st half of the race was pretty good, 2nd half was dull. I wonder how much of that was because the coverage could actually focus on any racing happening rather than a championship battle, perhaps Abu Dhabi has better races than we realise as the coverage normally follows the contenders only.


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Second half of the race could have been better if tire degradation was more of a factor. With their recent tire problems, I didn't expect Hamilton to be so strong till the end of the race on very old tires. And I (and Red Bull) expected Ricciardo would be able to make a bigger difference on his fresher tires than he did. This could have made it a thriller until the end, but it didn't work out.

Thank god, it's finally over.