Formula One team Alfa Romeo driver and Lewis Hamilton’s former Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas has been labeled a ‘loser’ by Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko. At the end of the 2021 F1 season, the Finnish driver left Silver Arrows after five years to join Alfa Romeo – where he replaced Kimi Raikkonen.
“That’s the big difference between him and Bottas, who is a loser in overtaking,” Marko was quoted as saying by Mirror.co.uk. “He’s super-fast, but he can’t overtake in traffic.”
Marko suggests that Sergio Pérez was more beneficial to his team for Mercedes than Bottas, as the Mexican could support Max Verstappen’s bid for the title. Marko believes Bottas’ issues stemmed from his inability to overtake compared to Red Bull’s own driver, Perez.
An example of this was seen at last month’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, when Perez did a great job of catching Hamilton early in the race, while Verstappen closed the gap for his opponent. In contrast, Bottas was stuck in the middle of the pack throughout the race and had little effect on Hamilton’s bid to win at the Yas Marina circuit, he explained.
Ahead of the new season, Bottas commented on his ex-team’s future, which has fueled speculation that he could dramatically retire from the sport after remaining silent on social media following the breakdown of his title in Abu Dhabi . On a podcast with Supala, Bottas argued that he believed Hamilton would return to the sport.
“I saw him several days after the race and the mood was still like a funeral,” he said. “Even when he knows he wasn’t the one who lost that race and was robbed, you know, it’s hard to swallow it like that. But You just wait and he’ll be twice as strong as you are every time, that’s what he is.”
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