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Valtteri Bottas Under No Illusion That Relationship With Lewis Hamilton Could Change

Valtteri Bottas Under No Illusion That Relationship With Lewis Hamilton Could Change

Will the teammates still get along at the end of the season?

Ryan Sidle

Ryan Sidle

On his 81st attempt Valtteri Bottas won a Grand Prix. It was a great victory for the Finn and he was congratulated by his teammate but Bottas is ready for that to change quickly.

It looked like Bottas would qualify in pole position for Sunday but in the end Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen achieved a Ferrari lock out.

However Mercedes newest driver was able to get himself ahead of both Scuderia at the beginning of the race and then held off Vettel towards the end to land his first victory.

Bottas celebrates his first win with the two Ferrari drivers. PA Images

It broke up the monopoly that Vettel and Bottas' team mate Lewis Hamilton had on the top spot on the podium in the previous three races of the season.

After the race three time world champion Hamilton took to Twitter to congratulate his team mate on his achievement:

Bottas was asked what the Brit had said to him in parc-ferme and revealed that he expects their friendship might become a bit trickier later in the season:

"He congratulated me. It's very very nice of him to be very professional about everything so far and he's been in front of me now... he's done a great job and I think vice versa.

"So I think we're working well as a team but I'd say also we did today against the Ferrari drivers. It's going to be a long year with a lot of fighting with all these cars.

"At some point things might get a bit more tricky on track - and if and when it comes to the championship fight, it might be less talking and more fighting on track."

There was a few awkward moments between Hamilton and Rosberg. PA Images

Bottas currently sits 10 points behind Hamilton after the former McLaren driver has twice finished runner-up to Vettel before a fourth placed finish in Sochi.

Of course the 32 year old's previous run ins with teammates have become famous, he and Fernando Alonso had a run-in over who was the number one driver and his relationship with Nico Rosberg fractured into non existence because of their title battles.

Mercedes admitted before last weekend's race that they would be returning to team orders if needs be so it'll be interesting to see if Bottas can keep the pressure on his teammate.

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