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the ultimate second driver
Rubbish and completely unable to match his teammate?
He seems like a likeable guy but he's been given the best car on the grid for season after season and he hasn't managed to do much with it. Rosberg was supposed to be number two and really took the fight to Hamilton. I suspect the same will be true for Russell.
Soul-
the ultimate second driver
Rubbish and completely unable to match his teammate?
I think Bottas had done a pretty solid job of being a number 2 driver and scored a lot of points for the team. He's just not a world title contender. Compare him with the job Perez or Albon (both of whom i like) have done/did and suddenly he looks a bit less shit. RB and Ferrari have been the only teams to challenge Merc in recent years and neither of them have had a really solid 1-2 line-up. Current Ferrari pairing is looking very good but not exactly competitive.
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Doesn't need to match his teammate though, he needs (from a Merc POV) to ensure the team get the WCC & WDC. He generally does a good enough job (which isn't asking much given the performance Merc have generally had over the competition during his stint) to not interfere with Hamilton too much and get solid points that prevent another team competing for the WCC.
Now that Merc might actually have some competition (though who knows what's going to happen next season), I think they'd much rather have one driver take all the wins and another who's happy to fight for 2nd-4th. Though feels like Bottas was getting tired of the number 2 driver treatment so may not have played ball for much longer regardless.
Definitely expect Russell to go all out and not sit back and be ordered to hold back. Fingers crossed at least!
I've also personally never rated Bottas that much (compared to the rest of the field), just this generation's Barrichello/Webber/Massa.
jono84
mmccarthy
Yeah, I mean Mercedes weren't exactly on top form so the 2 against 1 wasn't as effective as I thought it would be. Personally I've never found Red Bull to be too unlikeable, but Horner is a champion shit-stirrer and Marko should probably just not say anything as there's rarely anything interesting or constructive that comes out of that mouth. So it's not exactly difficult to see why they're disliked. Though I'd honestly rather put up with Horner than Wolff.
Probably easy for Vettel to be leading on overtakes given the qualifying woes this season!
Also, this race did show what I think is one of the main reasons folks tend to dislike Hamilton, when things don't go his way he's pretty horrible to listen to on the radio. Definitely feels like he's more likely than others to air some dirty laundry in public.
Also, also, did enjoy Bottas' radio comms after the final stop, when told that he would not be going for fastest lap, "So... why did we stop?". Has definitely replaced Barrichello in my mind as the ultimate second driver. Looks like the announcement to Alfa will come in the next day or so, seriously looking forward to Russell v Hamilton next year if so. Wouldn't be surprised if it ends up not to dissimilar to 2007.