I've Got The Key

The most coveted drive in F1 has gone to Valtteri Bottas. So what should we expect of the fleet Finn as he signs up for the sport’s toughest assignment: taking on Lewis Hamilton in equal machinery? He reveals all to F1 Racing. 

- Anthony Rowlinson

SOMETIME last year, F1 Racing’s principal photographer, Steven Tee, shared a gem of a tale relating to a particular TV show that had made him laugh so hard as he watched in the gym that he “almost fell off the cross-trainer”. This delightful image has brought considerable joy in recent months to those of us who know Steven well and it came to mind in conversation with Valtteri Bottas, when F1 Racing enquired how he’d heard the bombshell news of Nico Rosberg’s retirement on 2 December last year.

“I was in the gym in Abu Dhabi,” he relates. “We’d stayed out to do a few days’ testing with the old car, and Antti Vierula, my trainer, got a message about the news. Of course, it was surprising, for everyone, but into my mind came: ‘Someone needs to replace him, and I wonder who it’s going to be?’”

Granted, this wasn’t quite a ‘fall-off-the-cross-trainer’ moment, but the news did pull Valtteri up short. With a drive on offer at the best team in F1, there were suddenly more important things to do than finish his workout.

“It wasn’t long before I called Toto [Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff] and asked what they were doing. I don’t want to go into too many details about the conversation, but I made it clear that I would win races and championships if he gave me the drive.”

And what, we wondered, was it like for him to make that call? Back comes the answer: “It was very natural, like an instinct.”