Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas has admitted he needs to up his game after a run of poor races and says he avoided looking at the news and social media this week following the Sakhir Grand Prix.
Bottas has scored just 44 points since the Eifel GP, with eight of those points coming in the last three races, whilst team-mate Lewis Hamilton has scored 127 in the same period, which includes last weekend’s race, from which the World Champion was absent.
As a result, George Russell was drafted in and although Bottas beat the youngster to pole by the narrowest of margins, Russell went on to embarrass the Finn on Sunday, with what looked to be a comfortable win scuppered by the wrong tyres being fitted to his car and a puncture.
That result led to calls for Russell to replace Bottas next year, despite the 31-year-old holding a valid contract for the 2021 season.
Bottas though says he ignored the headlines and social media and is “in a place” to perform this weekend, though he admitted the last few races have been difficult.
“Obviously on Sunday [after the race] I’ve got to deal with all the media and when the driver has a bad race you have to deal with it and I did,” Bottas said on Thursday ahead of the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
“I’ve learned from the past that sometimes the best thing to do is to then block everything, not to look at anything. So, after Sunday I haven’t looked at any single headline, any single news article or social media, so that’s the way sometimes you have to do and it works for me.
“I feel full of energy for the new weekend, I feel that I’m in a place that I can perform and that’s the main thing. Every driver has his own way to re-set and get back up when you have a bad moment.”
Bottas reckons psychologically, knowing you’ve lost the title, can have a major impact on how you perform and admitted going up against a driver of Hamilton’s calibre every weekend can be draining.
“All I can say is that since Imola it has been a run of really bad luck and I can’t even remember the last time I was in the podium. I feel that I need to do better
“It’s no secret that battling with Lewis for years and years, I know how much it takes out of me, every single weekend trying to get 100 per cent out of me and keep pushing. Sometimes I get close, sometimes I managed to beat him.
“Having fought four years in a row, a defeat for the championship title is tough to accept. For sure it has an effect and when you know that the title is lost, it’s not quite the same, even though you should always give 100 per cent and that’s what I try.”
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