F1: How Valtteri Bottas can beat Lewis Hamilton in next year's championship

Next year could be the most important of Valtteri Bottas’ F1 racing career at Mercedes and a big part of that will come down to how he fares against Lewis Hamilton.

After a bright start, Bottas’ form has tailed off since the summer break and he now languishes 124 points behind teammate Hamilton with four races left.

The heat is mounting on the Finn with Mercedes youngsters Esteban Ocon and George Russell waiting in the wings.

Silver Arrows boss Toto Wolff described Bottas as Hamilton’s “wingman” after issuing team orders in Germany and Russia that went in the four-time world champion’s favour.

More worrying is that Bottas seems to have accepted his number two role at Mercedes, but even he knows this cannot happen again next season.

So how can Bottas beat Hamilton?

Only two drivers have outscored Hamilton in the same car throughout his 11-year F1 career - those being Jenson Button in 2011 and Nico Rosberg in 2016.

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However, Hamilton holds the all-time record of 80 pole positions and sits behind only Michael Schumacher in terms of race victories at 71.

Not only that, but Hamilton has also outscored Bottas by 182 points in their two seasons together at Mercedes and out-qualified him 24 times compared to the Finn’s 12.

Beating someone hailed as one of the all-time greats is a tall order for any driver in motorsport with Hamilton on the verge of becoming only the third driver in F1 history to win five titles.

The 33-year-old has already equalled last season’s tally of nine race wins, while Bottas is yet to collect a single one.

Although that may not have been the case had team orders not intervened at Germany and Russia.

But Bottas can take inspiration from predecessor Rosberg, who put aside a disappointing 2015 campaign to claim his sole championship a year later.

After taking the 2014 title race down to the wire, Hamilton outclassed Rosberg the following season.

However, the German ended things on a strong note by winning the final three races of that year before extending the run onto the opening four events of the 2016 season.

Rosberg then held his nerve for the rest of 2016 by maintaining the belief to win and remaining strong at each round.

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Now Bottas needs to emulate this feat heading into the final four races of 2018 and keep up a high level of performance across each race of next season.

In terms of talent and speed, Bottas has proved that he can be every bit as fast as Hamilton and averages just +0.155s slower in the 17 qualifying sessions of 2018 so far.

The 29-year-old only needs to have the perfect year and rid himself of the inconsistent spells he has shown at Mercedes.

While it may seem hard to imagine, Hamilton’s own flashes of inconsistency have cropped up throughout the years to prove that he is beatable.

The question is whether Bottas can put aside the struggles of 2018 and take the fight to a legend on the verge of his fifth title in the same machinery.

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