Bottas rates his season 8/10: ‘I can definitely do better’

Valtteri Bottas would give himself an eight of 10 for his performance across the 2019 Formula 1 season and insists he can “definitely do better” next year.

The Finn claimed four victories and five pole positions as he secured his best-ever season in F1 by finishing runner-up to Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in the championship, albeit some 87 points behind the six-time world champion.

While Bottas gave his Mercedes team a near-perfect score of nine out of 10, he feels he has more work to do on his side in order to challenge Hamilton in 2020.

“I think for the team I would say nine [out of 10],” Bottas said.

“It’s nearly perfect but I wouldn’t say it was perfect because we always need to do better, so it’s a nine because of that.

“We need to keep pushing, keep trying to do things better than they currently are and there’s margin to improve for next year.

“For me personally, it has been my best season in Formula 1 so far, so in terms of pure race speed, and on average, I give myself maybe an eight. I can definitely do better.”

Asked what he feels he needs to do in order to improve next year, Bottas replied: “I made good gains on all the areas this year, the consistency has been there, better than in the previous years.

“But I still need, over the whole season, to master every single track and conditions, so that’s the thing, I would say.

“Consistency throughout the year, but of course, that comes from many, many details and I can’t really point out one. Overall, I think that’s what I need to do.”