Lewis Hamilton: Toto Wolff reveals three areas Valtteri Bottas must improve to beat Mercedes team-mate

Valtteri Bottas

Wolff reveals three areas Bottas must improve to beat Hamilton

Is the Finn still a title contender?

Matthew Scott

Wednesday 26 June 2019 15:09

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has highlighted three key areas that Valtteri Bottas must improve in order to challenge Lewis Hamilton in the drivers' championship. Hamilton secured a fourth consecutive race win at the French Grand Prix to open up a 36-point lead over Bottas.

Victories in Australia and Azerbaijan helped Bottas to a career-best start to a Formula 1 season, but Hamilton has stepped up the game since then.

The season is now entering a period that Hamilton typically excels in, leading to fears that the season could be reduced to a one-horse race.

However, with a few tweaks Wolff believes Bottas can still be a title contender.

"With a decent start in some of the last races he could have won two of them, and he knows that," said Wolff.

"So I'm optimistic that Valtteri just needs one good weekend in order to come close to Lewis and not let him run away with the championship.

"Valtteri has shown great pace on the single lap, I think he's ramped up his game tremendously from last season to this season.

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"Now the second weakness that he needs to tackle is the tyre management. And he's very aware of that where he needs to improve.

"There are tracks where he's as strong as Lewis, or has been stronger, where it's not rear-limited. On the tracks where that is more of a factor, he just needs to change his driving style.

"That is not trivial for a racing driver, but he has all the abilities to do that."