Valtteri Bottas will join Mercedes from Williams this season it\u2019s been confirmed. After weeks of speculation, Formula One\u2019s biggest rumour was finally became fact.<\/p>\n
The move had been on the cards for a number of weeks, following the sudden retirement of World champion Nico Rosberg’s in December. Leaving Mercedes with a vacancy alongside Hamilton. Meanwhile it\u2019s been announced that Felipe Massa will race for Williams, despite retiring from the sport at the end of last season.<\/p>\n
Bottas told Mercedes staff \u201cWe did the contract today and obviously I\u2019ve been dreaming for a long time to drive for a team like this, a team of champions,” said Bottas as he was unveiled to Mercedes’ workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m really proud to be part of this and proud of what you\u2019ve achieved in the last few years but also in the whole history of Formula 1. It\u2019s mega to be driving a Silver Arrow myself this year.\u201d Bottas joins three time champion Lewis Hamilton, who he said is looking forward to working with.<\/p>\n
The Fin says he has a clear mission \u201cMy goal for the first race is to get all the points available that there\u2019s absolutely possible in the car. I\u2019m still missing my first win, so that\u2019s the first mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mercedes boss who also manages the Fin, Toto Wolff said \u201cHe has an impressive track record in the junior categories and nine podiums in F1. But now it’s time for the next level, to see how he can step up to challenge for race wins and for championships.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that we are already behind the curve in terms of preparations for the new season, so we’ve got a busy programme to get him integrated into the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Massa who only quit F1 because he knew he was not wanted at Williams and there was no other good seat available to him. The eleven time Grand Prix, he said: \u201cGiven the turn of events over the winter, I wish Valtteri all the best at Mercedes. In turn, when I was offered the chance to help Williams with their 2017 F1 campaign, it felt like the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yesterday Claire Williams said that the team wants to do the right thing and not stand in the way of Valtteri Bottas\u2019s future. Ms Williams said today \u201cWith Valtteri having a unique opportunity to join the current Constructors\u2019 Champions, we have been working hard to ensure that an agreement could be made with Mercedes to give Valtteri this fantastic opportunity\u201d<\/p>\n
This announcement was shortly followed by Sauber as well who announced that they had signed Mercedes test driver Pascal Wehrlein.<\/p>\n
These key announcements give Mercedes the line-up they wanted for this season and it could give Bottas the chance to fly. Bottas has proven that he has the ability to drive and fight against teams who have better cars than the Williams.<\/p>\n
Bottas however, still misses that win but has shown he can beat his team-mate on track when it matters, both in qualifying and races. He has so far, never been out-scored by his team-mate Massa in a season. But, he will surely have a tougher fight with Hamilton, which will be interesting as Bottas hasn\u2019t been under the pressure of being in a works team and fighting for the championship.<\/p>\n
Speaking about Wehrlein, Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn said Wehrlein had shown “talent throughout his career”.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cLast year, in his rookie Formula 1 season, he proved his potential by scoring one point in the Austrian Grand Prix. There is surely more to come from Pascal, and we want to give him the chance to further grow and learn at the pinnacle of motorsport.\u201d<\/p>\n
This move by Wehrlein to Sauber should help the team financially.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Valtteri Bottas will join Mercedes from Williams this season it\u2019s been confirmed. After weeks of speculation, Formula One\u2019s biggest rumour was finally became fact. The move had been on the cards for a number of weeks, following the sudden retirement of World champion Nico Rosberg’s in December. Leaving Mercedes with a vacancy alongside Hamilton. Meanwhile<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[425,699,754,1298,1366,1495,1770,1773,2031,2105,2149,2152],"class_list":["post-3175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-analysis","tag-claire-williams","tag-felipe-massa","tag-formula-one","tag-mercedes","tag-monisha-kaltenborn","tag-pascal-wehrlein","tag-sauber","tag-sauber-ferrari","tag-toto-wolff","tag-valtteri-bottas","tag-williams","tag-williams-mercedes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}