Formula 1: Valtteri Bottas did himself no favors with 8th place finish in Hungary

Valtteri Bottas did himself no favors in terms of re-signing with Mercedes for the 2020 Formula 1 season with his eighth place finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Valtteri Bottas is in his third consecutive Formula 1 season driving for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, and he is in his third consecutive contract season driving for the team.

Bottas is driving on a one-year contract extension that he signed in July of 2018, and this contract extension contains an additional one-year option that the Silver Arrows pick up to retain the 29-year-old Finn for the 2020 season.

But Mercedes have not confirmed that Bottas will return to the team next year, and with Mercedes junior driver Esteban Ocon waiting in the wings, Bottas can be considered on the hot seat.

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Mercedes team principal and CEO Toto Wolff has stated that the team will not rush their decision, but he has stated that it could be made as early as this month.

Bottas started the 2019 season off making it look like Mercedes would be foolish to replace him. He won two of the season’s first four races, and he entered the season’s sixth race having not finished outside of the top two. But since then, he has not won and has recorded just two second place finishes. He entered Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring after crashing in last Sunday’s German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring, which resulted in a massive 20-point swing in favor of teammate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton in the driver standings.

Bottas outqualified Hamilton for this 70-lap race around the 14-turn, 2.722-mile (4.381-kilometer) Hungaroring road course in Mogyorod, Hungary, as he qualified in second place ahead of the 34-year-old Briton in third. Both drivers qualified behind polesitter Max Verstappen of Aston Martin Red Bull Racing.

But on the race’s opening lap, Bottas tapped his front wing on Hamilton’s car in a battle for second place, and after Hamilton passed him, he further damaged this front wing by hitting Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in a battle for third.

The damage to his front wing caused Bottas to make an unexpected early pit stop, which dropped him to 20th (last) place. He could only rebound to finish in eighth, and for the first time in the 2019 season, he was the lowest finishing driver of the six Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing drivers.

He now sits 62 points (250 to 188) behind Hamilton, who might as well be given his sixth career and third consecutive championship already, in second place in the driver standings, and he sits just seven points (188 to 181) ahead of Verstappen in third. He has not been this far behind Hamilton all year long, and he has not been this close to a non-Mercedes driver all year long, either.

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After the Hungarian Grand Prix, which Lewis Hamilton won, Toto Wolff did not comment about the future of Valtteri Bottas with the team beyond the conclusion of the 2019 Formula 1 season other than to say that this eighth place finish would not be the only factor in terms of the team’s decision.

With that said, there is clearly no doubt that this poor result does not bode well for him, especially considering it followed his crash in the German Grand Prix, a crash that had it not happened, he could very well still be right up there with Hamilton in the driver standings contending for the championship.

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