No offense to the man as I’m quite sympathetic towards him as a person, but I can’t see it. He’s an incredibly anonymous driver, good enough to avoid incidents but not good enough to put in great performances. He does bring a lot of sponsorship money to the table, but I can’t help but think there are many other drivers with more upside.
He’s never been in hardware where he could show much. The same thing happened to Mick (and Mazepin to a lesser extent). He’s been putting in more than competent drives for several seasons. You would say the same about Piastri if McLaren were still at the back
Has Bottas shone a light on himself performance-wise during his time partnering Zhou?
I get what you mean but I’m not quite so sure it’s a driver quality issue
Mick had some good drives in his second season, starting around Montreal I think? If I recall correctly he was slightly faster than Magnussen during the back half of '22 - at the very least he was not far off.
Mazepin was atrocious so I’m not sure why he was brought up. He was historically bad by any benchmark.
Has Bottas shone a light on himself performance-wise during his time partnering Zhou?
I don’t think Bottas has been great either, and he’s still been consistently outperforming Zhou. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think Zhou is bad at all, but with the limited seats available I think most teams are looking for more than a 7/10.
Sure but Bottas has years of experience in the best team on the grid. For the rookies (hence why I mention Mazepin), they have no testing time so they have to just figure it out on track. If you’re driving the 2021 Haas for example, which literally changed shape due to overheating, how are you meant to compete?
I think the sponsorship money point is key, especially with him. If China views F1 as a valuable property, he’s the default spokesperson for all their advertisers. For a team on the lower end of the grid that’s a remarkable advantage in his favor!
![[Belgium GP] Zhou retires from the race.](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fa14bf98-a0ad-433e-8d6d-8040919941da.png?thumbnail=1500&format=webp){kind=link}
No offense to the man as I’m quite sympathetic towards him as a person, but I can’t see it. He’s an incredibly anonymous driver, good enough to avoid incidents but not good enough to put in great performances. He does bring a lot of sponsorship money to the table, but I can’t help but think there are many other drivers with more upside.
He’s never been in hardware where he could show much. The same thing happened to Mick (and Mazepin to a lesser extent). He’s been putting in more than competent drives for several seasons. You would say the same about Piastri if McLaren were still at the back
Has Bottas shone a light on himself performance-wise during his time partnering Zhou?
I get what you mean but I’m not quite so sure it’s a driver quality issue
Mick had some good drives in his second season, starting around Montreal I think? If I recall correctly he was slightly faster than Magnussen during the back half of '22 - at the very least he was not far off.
Mazepin was atrocious so I’m not sure why he was brought up. He was historically bad by any benchmark.
I don’t think Bottas has been great either, and he’s still been consistently outperforming Zhou. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think Zhou is bad at all, but with the limited seats available I think most teams are looking for more than a 7/10.
Sure but Bottas has years of experience in the best team on the grid. For the rookies (hence why I mention Mazepin), they have no testing time so they have to just figure it out on track. If you’re driving the 2021 Haas for example, which literally changed shape due to overheating, how are you meant to compete?
I think the sponsorship money point is key, especially with him. If China views F1 as a valuable property, he’s the default spokesperson for all their advertisers. For a team on the lower end of the grid that’s a remarkable advantage in his favor!