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Valtteri Bottas has parted ways with Mercedes after five years in the team to partner Chinese rookie Guanyu Zhou at Alfa Romeo in the 2022 season. Alfa Romeo team boss Frederic Vasseur expects Bottas to use his experience from the eight-time championship winning team and take the Italian team to the top and back to its days of success.
Describing the role he expects Bottas to play in the team, Vasseur told Autosport:
"He will be central to our project. It will be a pillar of the development of the team. It is probably not exactly like this at Mercedes, because he was always a bit in the shadow of Lewis. He will have to bring his own experience and to be a key factor in the development of the company and the team. This, for sure, will give him more responsibility."
The Finnish driver is expected to lead the team not just on track but off it as well and has a very different role to he had at Mercedes in terms of contribution. There is no doubt that Alfa Romeo is less competitive than most cars on the grid, so he may not be sipping the podium champagne as often as he did with Mercedes. However, given the incoming changes in technical regulations, one cannot really tell where each team will find itself until the start of the season.
Valtteri Bottas reveals the most impressive trait about former teammate Lewis Hamilton
It would not have been easy to partner a seven-time world champion, but Valtteri Bottas was the perfect wingman for Hamilton for most of his time at Mercedes. The former Mercedes driver revealed that the most impressive thing about the Briton is that despite all the experience and wins, Hamilton has not stopped learning and growing without getting too comfortable in his position.
As quoted by formula1.com, Bottas reflected on Hamilton's most impressive trait:
“You know, with Lewis, what has been really impressive is that every year he’s been able to develop. For sure, I’ve developed every year as a driver but so has Lewis and it doesn’t come automatically. He works for it because he knows the competition always gets tougher.”
The two of them made one of the strongest driver pairings in the sport. George Russell will now be joining Mercedes while Bottas is determined to breathe in some life into his new team.
