“I was so, so hard on myself…” · RaceFans

To say that fans have seen a new side of Valtteri Bottas since his departure from Mercedes to join Alfa Romeo for the 2022 season would be putting it lightly.

In the thick of the fight at the front at Mercedes over five seasons, Bottas was often quick, sometimes stunningly so, but always under intense scrutiny and pressure – as much from himself as anyone else.

But while his move from Brackley to Hinwil in Switzerland has inevitably brought a slip down the grid, the 10-times grand prix winner seems to have embraced his escape from the pressure-cooker environment at the front of the field. Where he may have only shown flashes of his cheekier side at Mercedes through the occasional TikTok, since joining Alfa Romeo he’s been quite literally flashing his cheeks every chance he gets – from auctioning off prints of him swimming nude in a Colarado river to sharing videos of him naked in a Finnish sauna.

Earlier in the season in France, https://www.racefans.net/2022/07/25/paddock-diary-2022-french-grand-prix/ to spark a new fashion trend by offering him one of the Circuit Paul Ricard bucket hats offered to journalists. After barely leaving the crown of his head for the rest of the weekend, you can now buy an official Valtteri Bottas bucket hat of your own, should you be so inclined.

He isn’t sporting one when RaceFans meets up with the Alfa Romeo driver in the Mexico City paddock, but he is visible relaxed. Clearly content in his new surroundings less than a year on from being let go by a Mercedes team who had grown deeply fond of him, as evidenced by the warm farewell he received at the factory at the end of last year. But by Bottas’s own admission, he now looks back on his time with Mercedes and realises just how mentally taxing it was for him to be racing for the world champion team.

“Especially the first couple of years – I was so, so hard on myself,” Bottas admits, candidly.

“I wanted everything ‘now’ and then it was difficult to deal with it when it didn’t happen, that I couldn’t win the title in the first couple of years. It was just hard to accept. I was really harsh on myself, and definitely sometimes being a bit more chilled would have helped.”

Now, Bottas is a different man and a different driver. Heading towards the end of his first year with his new team and having gone from being in the mix for poles and wins to scrapping to get inside the top ten, is he approaching race…