Today we shall talk about the two Williams drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa.
Valtteri Bottas has been with the team for a few years. First he was the test driver / reserve driver and then for the past two years he has been one of the racing drivers.
Felipe Massa joined Williams before last season so he should be used to the team by now.
OK guys.. I'll do this the same way as I've always done. So first the year, then the teammate and how the season went.
I'm gonna start with Felipe Massa because he got to Formula One first.
2002 - Nick Heidfeld. After Räikkönen got a seat at McLaren Peter Sauber signed Felipe Massa as Nick Heidfeld's teammate. Sauber said that Massa was even better than Räikkönen and was sure that everybody would see it. Unfortunately Massa didn't perform as good as Räikkönen a year before. Massa was 14th in the championship with 4 points. Heidfeld was 10th with 7.
2003 - Peter Sauber didn't want to continue Massa's contract because of "numerous mistakes" in 2002. Massa became Ferrari's test driver and later Sauber wanted him back for the 2004 season.
2004 - Giancarlo Fisichella. Massa had gotten better but this time he had a more experienced teammate against him. In the end Fisichella was higher up in the standings with 22 points and Massa had only 12.
2005 - Jaques Villeneuve. Now he had a former world champion driving with him. For the first time ever Massa was better than his teammate! The former world champion got 9 points and Massa got 11. This was not because of luck or bad luck. Massa was much better that season and got a seat at Ferrari for the next season.
2006 - Michael Schumacher. Schumi was fighting for the championship with Alonso. Massa was just the "junior teammate" who came to learn from the legend how it's done. Massa was 2nd in his first qulaifying with Ferrari right after Schumacher. Later on he started winning races and got better and better.
2007 - Kimi Räikkönen. The Iceman won his first race with Ferrari and 5 more races that same season. He also won the championship before Hamilton, Alonso and Massa. The brazilian said that 2008 was going to be his turn.
2008 - Kimi Räikkönen. This year Ferrari had a lot of technical problems. Massa retired 3 times and Räikkönen 5 times. Sometimes they had big problems even though they got to finish the race. Massa was more lucky than Räikkönen and was 2nd in the championship. It seemed for a while that he was the champion but Hamilton overtook Timo Glock on the last lap and won Massa by a single point. Anyways this was the second time he won his teammate in Formula One.
2009 - Kimi Räikkönen. This year the car was even worse. Räikkönen only won one single race for Ferrari and Massa had a serious accident in Hungary. He was replaced by Luca Badoer and later Giancarlo Fisichella who were not nearly as good as Massa. If you count Massa's, Badoer's and Fisichella's points together you get less points than Räikkönen got from the whole season.
2010 - Fernando Alonso. Alonso won him by 108 points with the new scoring system and was 2nd in the championship. He lost the championship in the last race when he got stuck behind Petrov. Massa was far behind in 6th place in the end of the season.
2011 - Fernando Alonso. Alonso's victory over Massa was even greater. 139 points more!
2012 - Fernando Alonso. Even more! 156 points, but Ferrari gave Felipe Massa one last chance to prove himself to the team.
2013 - Fernando Alonso. Alonso won Massa again very clearly which forced Ferrari to sign Kimi Räikkönen instead of Massa. They lost faith in him but wished him well.
2014 - Valtteri Bottas. I'll talk about him after I have compared Valtteri's previous teammates.
Here we go! It's Valtteri Bottas' turn. The list is very short because he has driven only two season's in Formula One (as a racing driver).
2013 - Pastor Maldonado. He was expected to be better than Bottas but it wasn't so. Bottas got 4 points and Maldonado got 1. According to the Williams team Bottas seamed to be a more mature driver than Maldonado even though he was a rookie. Bottas also got a P3 in the Canadian qualifying session which was a big surprise. Williams had an awful car in 2013.
2014 - Felipe Massa. He was also expected to be better than Bottas but he wasn't. He drove better than he did at Ferrari but it wasn't enough against Bottas. The points were 186-134 between them and Bottas took six podiums and Massa "only" three.
Last year I said: "People are not going to agree with me on this one but I really think that Bottas has a chance of being better than Massa in 2014". I was right and I am sure that he will beat Massa this year also. I like Massa but he has to do better in 2015 to beat Bottas. He is very though.
Last year I said: "People are not going to agree with me on this one but I really think that Bottas has a chance of being better than Massa in 2014". I was right and I am sure that he will beat Massa this year also. I like Massa but he has to do better in 2015 to beat Bottas. He is very though.
