The Inside Line

Valtteri Bottas arrives at the end of his 2nd season in Mercedes fifth in the standings and not a single race win to his name. His teammate, of course, went on to win his fifth world title. After 2 seasons in arguably the best car on the grid, why hasn't Bottas lived up to his potential? With 2020 looming,2019 is going to be a make or break year for Valterri. The 2018 season was Valterri's most disappointing season to date. We only really saw flashes of his brilliance throughout the year namely Sochi. Of course, he really should have 2 wins on the board. He should have won in Azerbaijan but was robbed of it thanks to a puncture and he certainly should have won in Russia but he,of course, had to move over for Hamilton who was chasing the title. The rest of the year was nothing special. From a driver who was revered at Williams and a driver who was putting the car in positions that it had no right to be in, what's happened to Bottas? Perhaps his role as second ...

It's official! Confirmed in a statement by Williams this morning, Robert Kubica will take the seat next to George Russell for 2019. Having been the reserve driver for the 2018 season, he will return to racing after his horrific rally crash in 2011. Originally, it was thought that Kubica would take a full-time seat in 2018 but a late change of plans put Sergey Sirotkin in the seat, leaving Kubica in the reserve driver role. This has allowed Williams to assess his contribution to the team, both in his driving ability and most likely the financial support that he can bring to the team. It seems that year as reserve driver has impressed the team enough to give him a full- time seat for next year. Claire Williams stated, " We went through an extensive process for choosing the driver for 2019......we don't just go off how popular they are, we go off talent". This means that we will likely be saying goodbye to Sirotkin in Abu Dhabi. Williams now have a very inte...