Valtteri Bottas, left, was teammates with Lewis Hamilton, right, at Mercedes for five seasons (Photo: Getty)
Sir Lewis Hamilton’s former teammate Valtteri Bottas believes the seven-time world champion will recover from his poor start to the 2022 Formula 1 season.
Hamilton is currently seventh in the standings, a whopping 58 points behind leader Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, and conceded after the latest race in Imola that his title hopes were already over.
His Mercedes W13 car is far off the pace of main rivals Ferrari and Red Bull, something that was highlighted at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, when the Brit finished way down in 13th place, having got stuck in a ‘DRS train’ behind a number of slower cars whom he was unable to overtake.
It is unusual to see Hamilton struggling as much as this, and even more strange that he is not performing as well as his teammate, with George Russell outracing him in three of the opening four races this season.
But Bottas, who spent five years as Hamilton’s teammate at Mercedes, has backed his friend to come back even stronger.
‘I would imagine he was stuck behind other cars [in Imola],’ the Finn said, as quoted by GPFans.
‘If there is a DRS train it’s not easy. George had a great start. That was the key to his race, but we will see a strong Lewis still in the coming races.’
Bottas has started the 2022 season surprisingly well with new team Alfa Romeo (Photo: Getty)
Bottas partnered Hamilton from 2017 to 2021, winning 10 races and helping the Silver Arrows claim five consecutive constructors’ championships.
But while still considered a good driver, Bottas was never on the same level as Hamilton, and was replaced by Russell for this year, with the Finn moving to Alfa Romeo.
This has so far proven to be a great decision as the Alfa Romeo car is performing surprisingly well, resulting in Bottas being eighth in the driver standings, just four points behind Hamilton, while the team are an impressive fifth.
‘I don’t know the reasons why they [Mercedes] are struggling, I don’t know their technical details,’ Bottas added.
More: Lewis Hamilton
‘But I focus on our things and focus on improving our car, which we did at the weekend and hopefully we can do it in the next race as well. It’s surprising.
‘They are still scoring points but hopefully, eventually we can score more than them.’
The next race on the calendar sees F1 travel to Miami for the first time in May.
MORE : Sebastian Vettel says ‘time will tell’ as he weighs up F1 retirement with Aston Martin struggling
MORE : Alex Albon doesn’t blame Lewis Hamilton for derailing his Formula 1 career
For more stories like this, check our sport page.
Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
