Bottas: Mercedes are definitely not favourites in France GP

Bottas: Mercedes are definitely not favourites in France GP

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 19 June 2018 12:21

Valtteri Bottas has claimed that, although Mercedes are set to receive their second engine of the season ahead of the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard, his team are "definitely" not favourites to win this weekend due to the tough current competition in 2018.

Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari won the last Grand Prix in Canada at a canter, with neither driver from Mercedes or Red Bull laying a glove on the German, who won from pole to flag with ease.

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Mercedes' troubles have been attributed to the fact they did not upgrade their engine to their second of the campaign, while their rivals did. Bottas is looking forward to receiving the new power unit, but insists that does not automatically make the team favourites to claim the flag.

"It's different grand prix, different kind of tyres and it's positive we're going to have the new engine, which we would have needed [in Canada] to win the race," said Bottas told Sky Sports F1.

"Hopefully we can have some other upgrades as well on the car because every team is developing now race by race and the competition is getting tougher.

"We came [to Canada] knowing that in theory it would be a good track for us. We came with even the old engine thinking there's a very good chance we were going to be fighting for the win. But it wasn't the case and it shows how tough the development race is now and we need to keep improving.

"We are definitely not the favourites for the French Grand Prix, that's a fact."

The new engine is coming, but Bottas reckons there are improvements on the car that need to be made also.

"We can't just blame the old engine, it's also the car," said the Mercedes driver.

"We need to improve the car. We have seen that on tracks with many corners like Monaco we were far away from being the best car. So we have work to do in all the areas, definitely."