16/06/2020
NEWS STORY
While his rivals have been keeping themselves sharp in the virtual world, Valtteri Bottas admits to having been driving something or other "flat-out" since Melbourne.
Like his teammate, the Finn has shunned the virtual world during the shutdown, instead keeping his hand in by driving a range of machinery, including karts and rally cars, flat-out.
"The main important thing was to keep driving," he admits, according to the official F1 website. "I consider myself lucky that I could do it.
"Every week since Melbourne I've been driving something," he adds, "and whether it's been a rally car or go kart, it's always been flat out.
"That's also why last Tuesday felt pretty good with the car," he said, referring to the F1 test at Silverstone.
Having taken part in the Arctic Lapland Rally, Bottas competed in a rally in December.
"Rallying is a big thing in Finland," he said. "There's a local team that managed to organise it within the rules and regulations and taking care of health and safety so we managed to do that, keeping the distance and still completing quite a few test days. Some were on tarmac, some on gravel... happy days."
Looking ahead to the forthcoming season he told Sky Sports: "It's obviously going to be pretty special because it's going to be shorter than the planned amount of races. So every mistake will cost you much more than previously.
"It's all about the consistency," he continued, "and I feel we've been working on with the team and my core engineering team in terms of my driver style, I feel I have a couple of new things in my driving style toolbox that I could use. I could feel that in Barcelona testing, in a couple of corners I made a good steps and I've been focusing on that during the lockdown.
"I feel I'm more complete as a driver and also physically, I'm peaking now. Hopefully that can really translate. I'm very confident, mentally in a good place, and I'm going to go all out, no doubt."