Valtteri Bottas will remain at Mercedes-AMG for the Formula 1 2020 season. The manufacturer preferred him to Esteban Ocon, expected to leave for Renault.
Mercedes made its choice. The world champion team was to nominate Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate for the 2020 season, including current partner Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon, reserve driver at Mercedes-AMG this year. Bottas was preferred to the French, again.
Valtteri Viktor Bottas is a Finnish racing driver competing in Formula One with Mercedes since 2017. The Finn has previously driven for Williams from 2013 to 2016.
“I am very happy and proud to be part of the team for a fourth season and I want to thank each member of the team and the board for their confidence and hopes placed in me,” says Bottas. “My performances have improved every year, and it’s a good way to start the second half of the 2019 championship.”
Esteban Ocon should leave Mercedes. Rumors evoke an arrival at Renault, with a possible confirmation in the next hours. Toto Wolff said this summer that he is ready to release Ocon in case of non-tenure.
Mercedes favors continuity
Valtteri Bottas made his arrival at Mercedes in 2017, after the surprise retirement of Nico Rosberg, who won the world title with the German manufacturer in 2016. The duet with Lewis Hamilton worked. The English became champion in 2017 and 2018 and Bottas helped Mercedes won the crown of the builders. Hamilton and Mercedes again dominate this year.
“For 2019, we set Valtteri’s goal to come back even stronger than we have what we saw in the first part of 2018, and he did it, with really impressive performances at the beginning of the year, ” says Toto Wolff, the boss of Mercedes Motorsport. “Although this has been his best first game of the championship so far, he wants to do better he is determined to continue to progress and raise the level. This is the state of mind we want for each member of the team. “
