Former Formula One driver Felipe Massa believes that Lewis Hamilton will be prioritized by Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport in the 2018 season.
Felipe Massa, the 36-year-old Brazilian driver who just retired following a successful career in Formula One during which he won 11 races over 15 seasons, discussed Mercedes-AMG Petronas and their driver situation moving forward into the 2018 season.
According to Massa, four-time and defending Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, 32, will be prioritized by the team in the 2018 season over 28-year-old Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton has driven full-time in the sport since the 2007 season and has racked up 62 career victories and four championships. He began driving for Mercedes in the 2013 season and has racked up 41 victories and three championships since then, with 40 of those 41 victories and all three of those titles coming over the course of the last four seasons.
Bottas, meanwhile, has driven full-time in the sport since the 2013 season. All three of his career victories and his career-high 3rd place finish in the drivers standings came in the 2017 season, which was his first season driving for Mercedes after he opened up his career with four seasons driving for Williams.
Here is what Massa had to say about the topic of Hamilton being prioritized over Bottas by the team in the 2018 season, according to Autosport.com.
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"“[For 2018] the team is completely on his side 100%, So he has no issue with his team-mate like he had maybe before [with Nico Rosberg]. So many things are really on his side and he can just make himself better and better all the time.”"
The issues that Massa is referring to took place when Hamilton was a teammate to 2016 Formula One champion Nico Rosberg. Hamilton and Rosberg did not have a great relationship in their four seasons together at Mercedes. Hamilton won the championships in 2014 and 2015, and Rosberg won it in 2016 before he retired, thus making room for Bottas on the team. It came to the point where their relationship was so bad that Mercedes threatened to release both driver after this wreck in the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.
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Will Mercedes prioritizing Lewis Hamilton over Valtteri Bottas in the 2018 Formula One season help Hamilton to win his fifth career championship in the sport, which would tie Juan Manuel Fangio for second on the all-time titles list behind only Michael Schumacher? The season is set to start on Sunday, March 25th with the Australian Grand Prix, a race won by Hamilton in 2008 and 2015.