Bottas explains Wolff’s ‘all you have’ F1 qualifying radio message

Valtteri Bottas has played down the significance of Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff’s radio message during Abu Dhabi Grand Prix qualifying as simply being a “personal thing”.

In a rare mid-qualifying radio message, team principal Wolff was heard telling Bottas: “All you have, Valtteri” as he geared up for his final lap of Q3 amid a tight battle to claim pole position for the final round of the 2020 season.

Asked what the meaning of the message was, Bottas, who was narrowly pipped to pole by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as he out-paced returning teammate Lewis Hamilton to take second place, replied: “He can always talk to us if he wants. In the last days we had a chat about different things.

“We’re a team, we support each other, as we feel like. If you can support another person in the team with encouragement or certain words you do it and I’d do the same for any team member.

“Nothing more than that, I think it’s more of a personal thing.”

Wolff said that his radio message to Bottas came after the pair had agreed to support each other more following talks in the wake of a difficult Sakhir Grand Prix for the Finn.

“It’s always tricky when you talk to the drivers before qualifying and the race but it’s something we discussed and he said ‘I need a little feedback from you, it’s always good’,” Wolff told Sky F1.

“It’s difficult because I’ve never talked to the drivers because I felt from my experience that it’s a bit distracting. Everyone is different and with him, we had a good talk.

“When the championship is lost, it’s obviously difficult to cope with that. And that’s why he said ‘let’s talk a little bit more’.”

Bottas looked set to score his second successful pole until a stunning last-gap effort from Verstappen saw the Red Bull driver snatch pole by just 0.025s.

“I think here it’s extremely difficult to get the perfect lap, but that’s ultimately always the target,” Bottas explained.

“You can always find a couple of hundreds here and there. Obviously, yes, I could have done a better job, it wasn’t too bad. I think the main issue, as the session was going on, I felt it was getting more difficult and in Q3 I was surprised how little, in fact, we could extract lap time with better track and everything.

“So, maybe struggled a bit with the front end of the car towards the end of qualifying, as the track temperatures dropped. I think, ultimately, today especially, Red Bull being very quick on the Soft tyre and we kind of lacked a bit with the getting more from the Soft, compared to the Medium.

“So, we need to learn for the future but, anyway, the race it’s tomorrow, it’s going to be close, I think, at least between us three.”