Valtteri Bottas's First Win Was the Realization of a Lifelong Dream
Two months before the 2017 Formula 1 season began, Valtteri Bottas filled the most coveted seat in the sport: the one left by Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, who shocked everyone—including the team—when he announced his retirement days after winning his first F1 title in 2016. In a matter of weeks, Bottas traded a decent race car for the best one on the grid, and he knew his first win would come soon.
How soon was up to him.
Welcome to Split Second, where we ask racers to recall a split-second moment that's seared into their brain—the perfect pass, the slow-motion movie of their own worst crash, the near-miss that scared them straight, or anything else—and what gives the memory staying power. In this edition, we spoke to Alfa Romeo Formula 1 driver Valtteri Bottas, who recalled his first F1 win.
Bottas’s path to Mercedes wasn’t linear. He’d spent the past four seasons at the Williams F1 team, while rumors about his future—including one that he’d join Ferrari as 2007 champion Kimi Räikkönen’s replacement—flew. During that time, F1 traded V-8 engines for turbocharged V-6 hybrids, ushering in a period of dominance by Mercedes.
Bottas was set to return to Williams for 2017 when Rosberg retired, opening a surprise seat next to multi-time champion Lewis Hamilton. It became his for the next five seasons.
“When I joined the team, I knew that it was hopefully going to be just a matter of time [before I won],” Bottas told Road & Track. “They always say the first one is the most difficult one, which I agree, because then you know it’s possible.”
The first three races of the season went by, with Bottas finishing third, sixth, and third again. Then came the Russian Grand Prix.
“I started third for the race, and I was battling with Sebastian [Vettel],” Bottas said. “I had this mega-start, and I was already first into the first corner.”
Bottas settled into the lead while cars spun and crashed behind him, bringing out the safety car on the first of 52 laps.
“What a sensational start there from the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas,” commentator David Croft said on the broadcast.
“This is handy,” Martin Brundle responded. “We know he’s really good around this racetrack, so that’s a beautiful position for him to get into.”
The race restarted on lap four, and Bottas sped away easily. He led almost every lap ahead of Sebastian Vettel, who went long on pit strategy in the middle of the race and stopped on lap 35. He returned to the track 4.6 seconds behind Bottas, but with seven-laps fresher tires.
“He was putting pressure on me toward the end,” Bottas told R&T. “I was just trying to focus on keeping it together, because if you start to think about it too much and think, ‘Oh, I’m going to win,’ or something, you’re going to make a mistake. I was really trying to focus corner by corner, lap by lap.”
Some drivers hum songs or do other things to take their minds off the stress, but Bottas doesn’t have a specific coping method—that he knows of, at least.
“Maybe I do, but it’s automatic,” he said. “I don’t really think about it. It just happens. I think it’s all the driving, because you start from a young age, and your focus trains automatically while driving. It’s just a habit when you race that you do the job and focus on it. Then you try to remove any outside thinking or disturbance.”
But automatic doesn’t mean infallible. On lap 39 of 52, Bottas locked up his brakes.
“He went wide in turn 13,” Vettel’s Ferrari team told him over the radio, while he closed to 2.4 seconds back. “He has a big flat spot on the left-front [tire].”
Vettel’s team told him to put pressure on Bottas and force another mistake. By lap 42, he was 1.2 seconds behind.
“Just press the overtake a bit earlier on those two main straights,” Bottas’ team told him on lap 44.
“The remaining laps, I want less talking,” he responded.
Vettel stayed around 1.5 seconds behind Bottas for the rest of the race, even setting the fastest lap of the race. But it wasn’t enough to catch Bottas.
“For the first time ever, Valtteri Bottas wins a grand prix!” Croft yelled. “Sebastian Vettel comes home in second place, and Kimi Räikkönen will complete the podium.”
“He won it off the start and kept his head under the most extreme pressure,” Brundle said.
Bottas came over the team radio to say it took him long enough to finally win one.
“When you cross the line, you have the cool-down lap,” he told R&T. “So you have time to chat with the team and, in a way, celebrate and wave with the crowd. You get out of the car, and then you’re on the podium. It was quite hard to believe. Like, it actually happened.”
Bottas said the win was even more special because Niki Lauda—a three-time F1 champion and non-executive chairman of the Mercedes team at the time—was still alive. He died two years later at age 70.
“He was one of the first to congratulate me,” Bottas said. “It was actually quite emotional.”
Bottas had a sponsor obligation the next day in Budapest, a four-hour flight away. He flew out and celebrated his Russian Grand Prix win in another country that night.
“The next morning was a bit tricky,” he laughed. “It was pretty hectic and busy. But then my best friends from Finland, they flew to Budapest so that after my event, we could enjoy it.”
Bottas said he’ll always remember that first win, down to the little details. It’s hard not to.
“For me, standing on the podium and realizing that this was my childhood dream since I was five years old, and it actually came true,” Bottas said. “It just felt surreal.”
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