© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says neither Valtteri Bottas’ nor George Russell’s future will be determined by their performance at the Sakhir Grand Prix.
With Lewis Hamilton on the sidelines due to COVID-19, George Russell and Valtteri Bottas are now in a position to be compared for a possible future seat with Mercedes. Well, that’s at least how the media tries to portray it. Toto Wolff says that is definitely not the case.
“Not at all, I’ve heard this rumour,” said Wolff when asked if Russell and Bottas are in a “shoot-out”.
“Obviously you can’t call it a ‘shoot-out’ when it’s about one or two races. That doesn’t give you any meaningful data whatsoever.
“If George does well it’s an indication that one day he’s going to be in a good car and hopefully race for victories and world championships.
“But that is far away, he knows that and he just needs to deliver a solid job and not make any mistakes.
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“There is no shoot-out. We have total trust in Valtteri and loyalty as we’ve always had and that is our position.”
As for George Russell, the Austrian says the Sakhir Grand Prix will only help Mercedes to better evaluate the Briton’s overall performance.
“It’s another set of data points that will be giving us more information in our overall understanding of George’s performances.
“We know that we [will] race next year with Lewis and Valtteri. Where we are in 2022 is all going to depend on where our own season in ’22 is going to go and not by George’s performance on an oval in Bahrain and in the season final in Abu Dhabi.”
