Mercedes Benz team boss Toto Wolff believes that Valtteri Bottas’s good performance in today’s qualifying session for tomorrow’s French Grand Prix was down to the Finn being in a good mindset. 

The Finn who came into this weekend’s race off the back of a poor Azerbaijan Grand Prix has been rumoured to be facing a driver swap with Williams’s George Russell as the Brit becomes a free agent at the end of the 2021 season.

But Bottas, who came into France with a new chassis, had a good start to the weekend, with the Finn topping the first practice session on his way to qualifying third place on the grid.

In a post-qualifying media session that included Motorlat.com, Wolff praised his driver’s performance after a challenging start to the season.

“I am very happy (with his performance), I think he’s in a good headspace, we had a good discussion last week, and he knows it’s all in his hands, and that’s good news because he’s in control of his destiny and it’s only about driving those cars fast.

Wolff also discussed the chassis saga, which has seen the team swap both chassis, with Bottas inheriting chassis number four whilst Lewis Hamilton would use chassis number six for Paul Ricard.

The Mercedes team principal played down the potential differences in both chassis.

“We have four carryover chassis and if you investigate with the other big teams such as Red Bull and Ferrari they should have carryover chassis rather than produce a new one, because a new one would be too expensive. One had an oops in Imola, one was in a box and the other two were in use.”

“So there was a plan at the beginning of the season on which chassis goes where, if there was one with damage where could we patch it up, there is no other thinking behind (the change), if there is the slightest deviation then the chassis isn’t being utilised anymore.”