It's Valtteri Bottas' 26th birthday today so I thought I should write about him. I am mainly going to talk about his career in Formula One so don't be surprised if I leave out his superb driving in the smaller series.
After Valtteri Bottas had won Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup, Formula Renault 2.0 NEC, Masters of Formula 3 and the GP3-series he was assigned as a test driver for the Williams Formula One team. This was in 2010-2012. In 2012 before he became Williams' racing driver he took part in 15 free practice sessions. He was very often faster than the teams racing drivers Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna. Bottas said that the practice session times don't matter even if he was faster.
Bottas returned to racing in 2013, as he was confirmed as teammate to Pastor Maldonado at Williams for the 2013 Formula One season on 28 November 2012. On 8 June 2013, Bottas qualified in 3rd position at the Canadian Grand Prix (Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montréal) behind Sebastian Vettel (1st), and Lewis Hamilton (2nd). He scored his first points finish at the US Grand Prix by finishing 8th. This result allowed Bottas to finish ahead of Maldonado in the Drivers' Championship.
On 11 November 2013 Bottas was confirmed to continue with Williams in 2014 alongside Felipe Massa who has been signed from Ferrari to replace Pastor Maldonado. At the first race of the 2014 season in Australia, Bottas qualified 10th and finished 6th, after recovering from a crash earlier in the race. He was later promoted to 5th after Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified from 2nd position.
At the Austrian Grand Prix, Bottas qualified 2nd, his best grid position in Formula One, and achieved his first podium in the sport, finishing third behind Nico Rosberg (1st) and Lewis Hamilton (2nd).
Despite qualifying 14th on the grid at the British Grand Prix, Bottas charged through the field to finish second, following Rosberg's retirement from the race, thereby achieving his second consecutive career podium.
At the German Grand Prix, he qualified second and ended the race in the same position despite a late challenge from Hamilton.
Bottas got three more podiums in 2014 (3rd in Belgium, Russia and Abu Dhabi) and was 4th in the final standings. He has now been better than both of his more experienced team-mates.
In 2015 Bottas got injured just before the first race and couldn't participate. He jumped in the car in the second race and has felt better in every race. It still looks like he has driven as much as Massa because their points are almost equal. I am pretty sure that he will beat Massa this year as well.
Happy birthday Valtteri!
