Words by Shayni Solanki
For some people, the toll of a near-decade-long career may be an imbalance of their work and personal life, for Valtteri Bottas, it was his mental and physical health.
Valtteri Bottas is a Finnish Formula 1 driver who drove for Mercedes-AMG for 5 years before joining Alfa Romeo in 2022. In his five years at Mercedes, the team was at their peak, winning 8 consecutive constructor’s championships all whilst bringing Lewis Hamilton to his 7th world championship. For 5 years, Bottas finished in the top 5 in the drivers’ standings. Throughout his career, he’s earned 67 podiums, 1791 points, and 10 race wins. It’s fair to say that, so far, he’s been rather successful.
Lately, Bottas has started to open up about his mental and physical struggles. In 2013, Bottas joined Williams Racing in his Formula 1 debut. His struggles began with unhealthy eating and training habits. In Formula 1, drivers and their cars need to be as light as possible to get the best aerodynamic results (within regulations). A desire to be as light as possible only amplified his unhealthy habits: Bottas shared with Finnish journalist Maria Vietola that at one point he was only eating steamed broccoli in between intensive training to get his weight down from 73kg to 68kg.
To make matters worse, Williams were experiencing a low in this era: a lull that had an effect on Bottas. When everyone is working so hard to achieve a goal that is repeatedly being missed, it’s hard to not take it out on yourself. He revealed that he “trained himself to pain, physically and mentally”, in the hopes that it would help the team to achieve their goals. By 2014, only his second year in Formula 1, he felt like he could disappear. At the time, he was also struggling with sleeping and eating well, which of course ultimately left him feeling drained.
In 2014, Bottas’ former teammate Jules Bianchi was involved in a crash at Suzuka. 9 months later, Bianchi passed away from injuries sustained during the crash. Watching a friend from the same industry as him suffer affected Bottas severely. He shared that a psychologist described him as a robot during this time, as he was so emotionally drained and almost programmed to only race. It took him two years to recover from Bianchi’s death and to rediscover his love for the sport.
When he joined Mercedes in 2017, they were experiencing a period of complete domination. Bottas had replaced 2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg, joining 3-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton. Yet, for Bottas, it never seemed good enough, reflecting on his time at Mercedes as “quite an exhausting five years”.
Seeing your teammate go on to win year after year, collecting 7 World Titles and literally 100 wins, would be hard for anyone with Bottas’ drive. He shared that it was only recently that he learned to accept that Lewis Hamilton was a better driver: “I wanted to win everything right away, and then when it didn’t happen, it was hard to accept”.
Doing better now, Bottas says “it’s been almost therapeutic” to speak openly about these topics. It’s important for the fans to know what truly goes on for drivers, and that it’s not all fast cars and glory. With this in mind, we should all hope that our favourite athletes are doing okay behind the scenes.