The driver who can wreck F1's "super exciting" 2020 silly season

Almost all the best drivers in Formula 1 are all set to be out of contract at the same time at the end of this year.

Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari? Max Verstappen to Mercedes? Sebastian Vettel back to Red Bull? Anything feels possible for 2021. It boasts unprecedented potential for an explosive driver market during the upcoming season.

The door is wide open, reckons Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff. "That's super exciting - I guess that the driver carousel is going to start pretty soon," he says.

But Wolff must be hoping prized asset Hamilton has not found a new seat when the merry-go-round stops. And another of the big three team bosses, Christian Horner, expects absolutely nothing to change. Hamilton appears central to this, because it seems highly likely he will recommit to Mercedes.

The six-time world champion's personal performances will almost certainly not impact the driver market. But his team-mate's will. And this puts Valtteri Bottas in an unusual role, for he is accustomed to being a bit-part player in the driver market.

It would be unfair to characterise the Finn as an afterthought, but he is not among the first priorities, and has admitted that year-to-year career uncertainty has become "a pain the ass".

Wolff says Mercedes will handle that better next year, but Hamilton's future will need to be nailed down first. If he retires, it could trigger the sort of domino fall mentioned above. Or if he made a sensational, shock switch to Ferrari, there could be a similarly spectacular cascade effect.

But, keeping the upcoming driver market tethered to reality, Hamilton is set to stay at Mercedes. He has indicated he expects to continue in F1 and that there is no reason for that to be anywhere except Mercedes. That means there's only one Mercedes seat really up for grabs, and that puts Bottas at centre-stage.

As current incumbent, Bottas has the best chance of being alongside Hamilton for 2021, because common sense suggests that if he does a good job he will keep his seat. Mercedes would be unwise to move away from the dynamic it enjoys with its current line-up.

Hamilton has raised his game with Bottas alongside him and the toxic atmosphere produced by the white-hot intensity of the intra-team Hamilton/Nico Rosberg rivalry is a thing of the past.

Bottas has helped the best team get better, contributed to three world constructors' titles, and effectively just needs to give Mercedes a reason to stick with him. If it does, it's hard to see movement elsewhere, and that potentially explosive driver market will fail to detonate.

On current form Bottas can have little fear of being pushed aside

Verstappen's most logical way out of Red Bull, should he even want to leave, would likely take him to Mercedes. He is often linked with the team, which was interested in him when he was making waves in his rookie season of car racing in European Formula 3 back in 2014.

Any team would have to at least consider a driver like Verstappen if he was available. But the path to the Silver Arrows seems likely to be closed all the while Hamilton is there.

Ferrari is also considered unlikely to want to pitch Verstappen alongside Charles Leclerc, who is considered the undoubted future of Maranello given his new extended deal until the end of 2024. So even if Sebastian Vettel had enough and walked away, Verstappen is probably not going to be relocating to Italy. He has even admitted that it would be wrong for Ferrari to place two potential number ones alongside each other.

For the same reason, Mercedes is unlikely to partner Hamilton and Verstappen by choice.

But if Bottas is not up to the task, and circumstances conspire to make signing George Russell too big a gamble after two years in uncompetitive Williams machinery, then perhaps the headache of a Hamilton-Verstappen line-up is worthwhile to guarantee Verstappen is there to be team leader when Hamilton does exit.

That scenario almost writes itself. Verstappen moves to Mercedes, leaving a team-leader hole to fill at Red Bull. That's a nice fit for Vettel, giving him a soft exit from a Ferrari team built more and more around Leclerc. Perhaps a Daniel Ricciardo type then slots in alongside Leclerc?

It's a fanciful notion, tinged with realism, but the underlying point is it cannot happen if Bottas does not vacate his seat. And on current form Bottas can have little fear of being pushed aside.

In 2019, Bottas proved himself worthy of a top drive. It was a crucial development, because his credentials were in doubt after the way his '18 season tailed off. And he knows that, which is why he describes his strong form last year - four wins, five poles, 11 other podiums and runner-up in the championship - as "so important for me, and also for my general well-being".

As Bottas told Autosport in Brazil late last year, "if I'd had a similar season to 2018, I don't think the team would have continued with me".

It is easy to see why. Last year, and for a brief spell this season at the crunch moment of Mercedes deciding whether to stick with him for 2020 or promote Esteban Ocon instead, Bottas had a big question mark attached. Could he really be trusted in battle against Ferrari and Red Bull?

The Mercedes working environment has always done wonders for Hamilton and early in the year Bottas was a key fixture in the team's domination, but as Red Bull's challenge picked up and Ferrari stopped shooting itself in the foot, Bottas either wilted under pressure or went missing.

After a tentative resumption of the season after the summer break, that side of Bottas's game improved. A lightning start set him on the way to a controlled victory in Japan and in the United States he did his best to spoil Hamilton's coronation by acing qualifying and winning in arguably his most convincing fashion on the Sunday.

Bottas's 2019 season was his best by any meaningful statistic but crucially it was underpinned by strong performances relative to his relevant competitors.

There are still weaknesses in Bottas's game - a touch too much inconsistency on Sundays and a lingering weakness in battle that can stifle him in traffic

Between the summer break, when Bottas's future was secured, and Brazil he was only outscored by Hamilton. And even then, only by five points.

Despite Ferrari's massive upturn in form, Bottas bagged more points than both Leclerc and Vettel, and Verstappen. Had his engine not failed and robbed him of a solid score in Brazil - and a potential victory in Abu Dhabi, where he had to serve a grid penalty as a result of that failure - then those stats would extend to the entire second half of the season.

The bottom line is Bottas has not been performing as a number two. He's arguably been doing more than that. Mercedes will never label its drivers as such, but this version of Bottas is a dream deputy for the team.

There are still weaknesses in his game, a touch too much inconsistency on Sundays and a lingering weakness in battle that can stifle him in traffic, but the trend is positive and he can continue to improve.

If this is what we can expect from Bottas in 2020, when the Ferrari and Red Bull challenge should be even greater, then he will give Mercedes no choice but to keep him. Bottas himself admits his aims are to give Mercedes a "no-brainer" decision and secure a deal longer than just one year in the process.

If Bottas succeeds in both ambitions, it will put an end to the career uncertainty that has annoyed him in recent years.

Fans that get sucked in by the allure of the driver carousel Wolff has talked up might feel a little short-changed, but it's hard to see Bottas or Mercedes feeling particularly guilty about that.

After all, their job is not to make decisions based on what punters might get a kick out of, it's... to do their jobs. Continuity is the best chance to make that happen, which makes Bottas the driver to make that happen.

Even if it brings a fun merry-go-round to a grinding halt.