n many ways, though, it was the Finn’s pole position at the Eifel Grand Prix on Saturday that should have opened Bottas’ personal release valve.
His Russian win was somewhat fortuitous, in that Hamilton was taken out of the lead by the controversial time penalty he was given for two illegal practice starts before the race. After that, Bottas was left to stroke home in the fastest car ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Perhaps the win did boost his confidence, however. For at a chilly Nurburgring, Bottas beat Hamilton in a straight fight in qualifying for only the third time this season and for the first time in six races.
No wonder the six-time champion was after the session in one of those slightly grumpy moods he gets into when he comes off second best.
“Lewis doesn’t like to be in P2 or worse,” team boss Toto Wolff said. “Accepting to follow a car is not how he operates.”
Hamilton very nearly did not even make it on to the front row, for Verstappen was just 0.037 seconds behind Hamilton, whose gap to Bottas was an unusually large 0.256secs.
Verstappen, in fact, was closer to beating the Mercedes to pole position than at any race so far this year. The Dutchman looked competitive throughout the only day’s running so far at this race, and was actually fastest of all on the first runs in the final part of qualifying.
In the end, the Mercedes just had that bit too much for him, but the trend line of Red Bull’s performances is very clear. In the past three races, they have taken a big step towards Mercedes in absolute competitiveness.
Red Bull started the year with a difficult car, one that was as likely to spit its drivers into a spin as it was to set a quick lap time, and over the first half of the season its average qualifying deficit to Mercedes was a massive three-quarters of a second.