Bottas knows what he must do to close gap on Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas has admitted that he must do much better in Grand Prix qualifying races if he is to close the gap on Lewis Hamilton in the 2018 season and subsequently get a lot closer to becoming world champion, whilst also claiming he has learned a lot from mistakes made this past campaign.

Bottas' Mercedes team-mate, Hamilton, won the title in 2017 while the Finn came in second place behind Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari.

He won Grand Prix races in Russia, Austria, and Abu Dhabi but surrendered the majority of the rest of the campaign to Hamilton, who claimed eight flags. Bottas has identified his performance in qualifying races as the reason for not bettering Hamilton more often, as he often begins GPs behind his team-mate.

"His strength was the qualifying," Bottas said to GPUpdate.net, referring to Hamilton.

"He did some really good qualifying performances and most of the time started the race from pole position and [the race is] always different [from pole].

"I think for me I need to focus on my qualifying, and also some of the races that I struggled with the race pace.

"The last few races of the season I could really learn a lot and improve a lot, so I need more consistency with my results and then it's possible to fight with him."

Despite finishing the season third in the championship rankings, Bottas was voted by F1 team bosses this week as being the tenth best driver of the year. However, even with this supposed underrating of his abilities, he spoke of his lack of concern at voting contests.

“There’s always all kind of polls and stuff,” he told the media at the FIA prize-giving gala last week.

”I don’t really think about it, if I‘m underrated or things like that.