Bottas confesses his “dark place” was caused by his support role for Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas, the racer for Alfa Romeo, has admitted that during his first two seasons as Lewis Hamilton’s teammate at Mercedes, he contemplated giving up racing.

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas

Having to occasionally backup Lewis Hamilton throughout his stint at Mercedes has left Valtteri Bottas in a “dark place,” according to him.

While competing with Hamilton for five seasons, Bottas initially felt that the car’s setup favoured the British driver, which left him disappointed with his inability to defeat the seven-time World Champion.

Bottas outqualified Hamilton numerous times later in their relationship, with the first instance occurring in 2017 in Bahrain. The Finn was unable to keep up with Hamilton’s speed and fell back to third place as a result of tyre pressure difficulties.

With Mercedes, he concluded his career with 10 victories, the first coming in Russia in 2017. Bottas has acknowledged that he lost his love for driving as a result of his efforts to compete with Hamilton and the ensuing support role he frequently had to play.

Bottas: I put so much pressure on myself

“At the end of 2018, I almost stopped, it was so close,” Bottas told MotorSport Magazine’s My Big Break podcast.

“Just because I couldn’t understand and take the fact that I couldn’t beat Lewis in those two years.

“I put so much pressure on myself. Towards the end of 2018, especially when I started to have the support role in the team, I really couldn’t take it, I really struggled. It was not fun.

“The human mind is strange in a way that sometimes you go into dark places. You lose the joy in things, and I just completely lost the joy of F1 and racing in F1.

“I was almost angry at F1.”

How a break enabled Bottas to recover

After taking a step back from it all, Bottas discovered that he was better able to regain his enthusiasm for the motor racing.

“It’s weird, but I just needed some time off, and think of the big picture and then I realised that, ‘Okay, it’s actually a pretty cool sport and I still have great opportunities ahead of me’,” he explained.

“So, I would be silly not to take them.”

Bottas, who currently drives for Alfa Romeo, placed seventh overall in his previous race in Canada.

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