Harsh criticism of Bottas: 'You can't build on him anymore'

Bottas as a jammer

According to Timo Glock, himself a former F1 driver and currently active in the DTM, Bottas is even becoming a major problem. In his column on the site of Germany's Sky Sports he writes: "Lewis Hamilton has a good car of course. But that's not good enough to beat Red Bull and Max. In my opinion, the problem with Mercedes is that Valtteri Bottas no longer has the motivation to continue giving Lewis unlimited support."

Glock admits that from the sidelines it may look different than the reality is. He continues: "I think beforehand at Mercedes they discussed the strategy relatively clearly and went through numerous scenarios before the start. Valtteri focused more on Lewis in that case, which I didn't understand. I think it would have been clearly his job to do everything he could against Max to clear the way for Lewis to be ahead on the corner. That didn't work at all."

Perez does better

In other words: Hamilton is currently short of Bottas, the driver he praised so much for years. "I find it hard to believe that Mercedes can still build on Valtteri," Glock said. "Red Bull has got it better when they bet on Sergio Perez. He showed that. He did everything he could to help out up front and take the points away from Lewis. As a result, I see Red Bull holding the better cards. When it comes to the constructors' title, you need two drivers you can clearly count on. Of course Valtteri wants to get good results too, but Mercedes are still behind for this title."