Valtteri Bottas on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari learning curve: “It’s not rocket science”

Valtteri Bottas has described adapting to a new F1 team as “not rocket science” while reflecting on Lewis Hamilton’s challenging start at Ferrari.

Bottas spent five years as Hamilton’s teammate at Mercedes between 2017 and 2021.

The pair remained unbeaten in the constructors’ championship, seeing off the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull in that time.

Bottas’ time with the team ended before the 2022 season, paving the way for George Russell to join Mercedes.

The Finn joined Alfa Romeo (now Sauber), which were powered by Ferrari.

Having gone through a process similar to Hamilton’s at Ferrari, Bottas conceded that it was “straightforward” for him, and it’s a case of adapting as time goes on.

“For sure, there’s things to learn, things to get used to,” he told the Red Flags podcast. And especially if you are with a teammate that has got used to all that, he will have the upper hand initially, but racing drivers always need to be adaptive.

“You need to be able to adapt to a new car. Pretty much every year there’s a new car anyway – power units will change and so on.

“So it’s nothing unusual in F1 that you’re always adapting, always learning because this sport just keeps developing.

“But I know what he’s probably been going through and for me, personally, it was quite straightforward.

“But we must remember that at that time when I joined Alfa Romeo, there was the big regulation change so there were many new things anyway already.”

Bottas compares Ferrari and Mercedes

Bottas explained the differences between the Ferrari and Mercedes F1 power unit.

This is one area where Hamilton has struggled to adapt, particularly as he’s driven with Mercedes power for his whole career.

“The driveability is a bit different. How the power comes, especially at the lower revs. But which one is better? It’s difficult to say,” he added.

“The settings, the power harvesting, power deployment, you’ve got different strategies. They call them differently, so you need to learn how to use that.

“Even the harvesting, the braking can be a bit different because of that. [The sound] can be different, but that doesn’t really make a big difference. That’s it really. It’s not rocket science.”

Bottas also downplayed the difference in brakes, with Mercedes using a different supplier to Ferrari and Sauber.

“For me, it didn’t make a difference,” Bottas explained.

“Obviously, Mercedes uses CI. Sauber used Brembo, which is what Ferrari used. The only small difference for me was how the brakes warm up. Another brand warms up quicker, but for me the behaviour was the same.”