Bottas focusing on mental battle to defeat Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas has revealed to focusing on his mental approach this season in a bid to finally overcome Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton and fight for the Formula 1 title.

Throughout his time at Mercedes, Bottas has been comfortably beaten by Hamilton in each of their four seasons together, with the Finn claiming he has been unable to consistently extract his maximum performance.

At times, Bottas has shown signs of being able to match and even conquer his seven-time championship-winning partner only to fall away as the season has progressed.

Bottas has pointed to his ability to find consistency as a key challenge for the upcoming campaign.

"If I look at last year there were races that I couldn't effect but there were many races where I could have done a better job," said Bottas, who was beaten by 124 points by Hamilton.

"Still, I think from my side, the big thing is consistency. Many times I perform on the level I want but there are times that, for some reason, I don't and I feel like I couldn't get 100 per cent out of myself and my team around me."

Bottas finished second in last season's standings as errors and bad luck derailed his championship tilt, and instead he just fended off the challenge of Red Bull's Max Verstappen,

With the difficulty in performing every race weekend, Bottas has opted to focus on the mental side of his preparation for the new year.

"I think I have realised that a lot of [finding consistency] is the mental side of things," he added.

"So I have made sure I have gone through the learnings of previous years, still working a lot with my driving style and technique and still trying to perfect the Pirelli tyres.

"I think a lot of the work and focus for me this season is the mental side of things and trying to be mentally at my best at grand prix, trying to find the right way of getting everything from the grand prix weekend, trying to find a flow and in that way, the consistency over a season."

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