Valtteri Bottas Tag

By FIA Sebastian Vettel will make his 200th grand prix start from the front of the grid after the Ferrari driver claimed his 51st career pole at the Bahrain International Circuit ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Mercedes Valtteri Bottas. Defending champion Lewis Hamilton finished in fourth place but the Mercedes driver will drop to P9 on the grid due to an unscheduled gearbox change. Räikkönen set the early pace in Q1, his first flying laps, on soft compound Pirelli tyres, yielding a time of 1:29.951. Ferrari team-mate Vettel slotted into P2Read More

By FIA Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo edged a tight battle for early supremacy in Bahrain, beating rivals Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen by over three tenths of a second in the opening practice session at the Bahrain International Crciut. While the opening session at the Gulf circuit is notoriously unreliable due to its daylight timing ahead of a night race, Ricciardo will take confidence from his late charge up the leaderboard. After an early run on medium tyres, the Australian spent the bulk of the session inRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton took his first pole position of the 2018 season in imperious fashion, beating Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen and third-placed Sebastian Vettel by nearly seven tenths of a second. It was a bittersweet sesssion for Hamilton’s Mercedes team, however, as the defending team-mate, Valtteri Bottas, crashed out heavily at the start of the final session. Räikkönen set the pace early in Q1, eventually rising to a time of 1:23.096s ahead of the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. The order changed when Hamilton began to put togetherRead More

By FIA Sebastian Vettel set the quickest time of the opening day of the second and final pre-season test ahead of the 2018 FIA Formula 1 season, edging Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas by just two hundredths of a second. Bottas made the early running on a busy morning for 2018’s expected front runners, putting in 86 laps on his way to a best time of 1:20.596, set on soft compound Pirelli tyres. However, he was deposed from top spot shortly before lunchtime when Vettel logged a lap of 1:20.396 using mediumRead More

By FIA Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel set the quickest time of day two of the first pre-season Formula 1 test in Barcelona, outpacing Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas by three tenths of a second. McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne finished third on the timesheet a further three tenths back. The day began in muted fashion as overnight snow and rain meant conditions were tricky early on and many teams avoided significant running before the halfway point of running. One of those was Red Bull Racing, with the Milton Keynes team being restricted to the garageRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor The 2018 Formula One season is finally upon us. After the long winter break, all 10 teams hit the track this morning at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. While the full picture of who is competitive, who has got it right, and who has got it wrong won’t fully form till the end of testing next week, there are meaningful things we can gleam just from breaking down the first day’s running. The biggest caveat in doing so are two variables that made today’s runningRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Mercedes unveiled their 2018 car today at a cold Silverstone circuit. The brand new W09 is the latest in the royal bloodline that has won four consecutive drivers and constructors championships. If the team can achieve that feat again this season, they will equal the success of the Michael Schumacher era at Ferrari. To do so the new W09 will need to be less of a diva than its predecessor which saw Ferrari put up a close fight and get Sebastian Vettel past Valtteri Bottas inRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Motorsports Tribune reviews the top 10 Formula 1 drivers of 2017. Our list continues with second-place finisher Sebastian Vettel. Sebastian Vettel, No. 5 Scuderia Ferrari 2017: 2nd in the championship, 317 points Wins: 5, Podiums: 13, Top 5: 17, Top 10: 18, Poles: 3, Laps Led: 286, Fastest Laps: 5 Best Finish: 1st – Five times (Australia, Bahrain, Monaco, Hungary, Brazil) Sebastian Vettel had a dream start to the 2017 season, and a nightmare finish. His season of two halves saw Ferrari come closest to theRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Motorsports Tribune reviews the top 10 Formula 1 drivers of 2017. Our list continues with third-place finisher Valtteri Bottas. Valtteri Bottas, No. 77 Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport 2017: 3rd in the championship, 305 points Wins: 3, Podiums: 13, Top 5: 18, Top 10: 19, Poles: 4, Laps Led: 187, Fastest Laps: 2 Best Finish: 1st – Three times (Russia, Austria, Abu Dhabi) Valtteri Bottas had the most daunting task of any driver heading into the 2017 Formula 1 season. A last minute call to move fromRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Motorsports Tribune reviews the top 10 Formula 1 drivers of 2017. Our list continues with fourth-place finisher Kimi Raikkonen. Kimi Raikkonen, No. 7 Scuderia Ferrari 2017: 4th in the championship, 205 points Wins: 0, Podiums: 7, Top 5: 15, Top 10: 16, Poles: 1, Laps Led: 40, Fastest Laps: 2 Best Finish: 2nd – Two times (Monaco, Hungary) Kimi Raikkonen was the only driver from the big three teams in 2017 not to win a Grand Prix. It is a hard statistic to swallow for aRead More