Valtteri Bottas – the 25th recipient of the Bandini Trophy
Yesterday, on the 5th of May, Valtteri Bottas was awarded the Trofeo Lorenzo Bandini for his motorsport achievements in 2017.
Before we’re getting to the main theme of the article, let us give you a brief look at Valtteri’s career in Formula 1.
Seasons 2013-2016
Back then in 2013 the Finn joined Felipe Massa in Williams F1 team as a rookie. The year was not so successful for him as he finished 17th in drivers’ standings table. But the upcoming years were much better: we have often seen Valtteri on the podiums, and also finishing races somewhere very close to it, 4th or 5th. All of the scored points resulted into 4th and 5th places at the 2014 and 2015 season’s finales.
All the stability showed by the Finnish driver (and a bit of luck, as Nico Rosberg retired from F1 at the end of 2016) made it possible for him to reach the highest point of his career so far – Mercedes AMG bosses offered him a contract, which was impossible to refuse.
Season 2017
The first year with the new team started a bit tough, as Bottas has just started to get used to the team, the car, the environment, the atmosphere and so on. Huge breakthrough was made by him during Bahrain Grand Prix, where Valtteri claimed his first pole in Formula 1, from which his all the success started: wining at the Russian Grand Prix, then being second in Canada and Azerbaijan and winning once again, in Austria.
The second half of a season, after the summer break, seemed like a fight with a sudden lack of race and qualification pace, the Finn was failing to catch his partner Lewis Hamilton and losing his positions in the Championship against the competitors. It was a period of high pressure – Mercedes has signed him only for one year with a re-signing option, so this option was set under the doubt.
However, Valtteri Bottas has managed to regain his form at the end of the season, finishing it with two second places and a win in the final race.
Season 2018
In the current season he has already earned podiums in Bahrain and China, and almost won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, having a brilliant pace and a good strategy.
Yesterday, on the 5th of May, Valtteri Bottas was awarded the Trofeo Lorenzo Bandini for his motorsport achievements in 2017. Besides Valtteri, other representatives of the Mercedes AMG F1 team were there at the ceremony, both of them Italians – chief engineer Aldo Costa and chief race engineer Riccardo Musconi.
Proud Bottas commented on his Twitter page:
“Big honor to receive the Trofeo Lorenzo Bandini 2018 today. Thank you everyone for attending. Means a lot”.
The Finn became the 25th winner of this award, which past winners include Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. Lewis Hamilton got the Bandini Trophy in 2010, while former Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg won it the following year.
Mercedes became the first constructor to be honoured with the award, winning it in 2015 for the team's dominant performance in 2014.
Let us note, that the driver, who will receive the prize of Lorenzo Bandini, is chosen by a special jury of 12 people, including Giancarlo Minardi, the founder and former head of the Minardi team, Cesare Fiorio, the former sporting director of several teams such as Ferrari, Ligier and Minardi, and Pino Allievi, a well-known Italian journalist, writing about Formula 1.