The first time Bottas looked like a world-beater

The crushing victory by Valtteri Bottas in the Australian Grand Prix was no surprise to those he worked with during his early career - in fact, it merely served to vindicate what they had always believed.

It also made Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff nostalgic for the first time since he encountered his future driver.

"In 2008 I got a call from a young boy who asked for a meeting. It was snowing in Vienna and this young Finnish boy came in with a pullover, no jacket, and asked for advice," Wolff recalled.

"That young boy went on to dominate the Formula Renault Eurocup in a strong year with [Jean-Eric] Vergne, [Daniel] Ricciardo, [Roberto] Merhi, and he led almost the whole season.

"This is the Valtteri Bottas that I have seen yesterday and today. It was in him.

"Maybe his years at Williams and then the shock draft into Mercedes was something that he needed to digest.

"He went off tired at the end of the season and came back the 2008 young man."

Bottas actually grabbed a come-from-behind victory in that 2008 Formula Renault Eurocup, his second season in car racing, in which his principal opponent was fellow future Formula 1 star Daniel Ricciardo, while Roberto Merhi and Andrea Caldarelli (then a Toyota junior) were also firmly in contention.

For Motopark team boss Timo Rumpfkeil, whose squad fielded Bottas in 2008, that result was confirmation of the talent he had seen right at the beginning of Bottas's rookie season in car racing in the Formula Renault Northern European Cup in '07 with Finnish team Koiranen Bros Racing.

"The first round at Zandvoort was in damp conditions, and with the Koiranen car he finished right on the gearbox of my driver [2007 NEC champion Frank Kechele], who won the race," recalls Rumpfkeil. "That was the time he first caught my eye. We were in close contact all season, and we put him in the car right away after the season and did a few tests.

"Of course you could see how good he was - he was handling things really naturally and clearly better than the other karters" Afa Heikkinen

"We put the deal together, but there was some dragging between us and Raikkonen Robertson Racing to put him in British Formula 3. So we were happy to get him in here."

In the meantime, Bottas went off for a little-remembered sojourn in the end-of-season 2007 Formula Renault UK Winter Series. He dominated, claiming two wins at Donington Park plus a victory and a second at Croft.

"He cleaned up," says Andrew Kirkaldy, who ran the AKA Cobra team for which Bottas raced, "but unfortunately he didn't have a British licence so he couldn't score points."

That wasn't the first time Bottas drove an AKA Cobra car - in fact, Kirkaldy believes that it was his team that gave the 17-year old his first test in a single-seater some time in 2006 on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit.

AKA Cobra already had a link with Finnish welding giant Kemppi, the sponsor that helped take Bottas from karting through the junior ranks and even the bulk of his F1 career.

"I knew he came highly recommended, but we didn't know a lot about him," says Kirkaldy. "He was very impressive the first time in the car."

Whether that was Bottas's first test in a car is lost in the mists of time, and certainly Afa Heikkinen - one of the chiefs at the Koiranen team - remembers an outing that potentially came earlier.

"The Finnish federation organised something with us for a group of karters who came to test, at Alastaro if I remember correctly," says Heikkinen. "It was just to give them an idea of the step from karting to formula cars.

"You can see always if somebody has something, and of course you could see how good he was - he was handling things really naturally and clearly better than the other karters."

While AKA Cobra wanted to snap up Bottas for Renault UK, Koiranen - yet to achieve the success it would enjoy in years to come - moved to get him into its NEC team.

"One of the main challenges was to get them to believe we could be competitive because it was early days for us," says Heikkinen. "And on the other hand they didn't have much funding, so it was a case of finding the best compromise. Also the Koiranen brothers [team founders Jari and Marko] were really close to his father - they were almost from the same town."

Bottas placed in the top six in each of the first 12 races he finished, and then, with champion Kechele absent, he scored both victories in the Hockenheim finale.

"You could see he was a really talented guy," says Heikkinen, "but the resources we had competing against Motopark - we didn't compete in the Eurocup - was a big handicap.

"Based on all the knowledge we have now, we definitely shouldn't have been top three in the championship, but he finished third. That was an impressive job."

Then, in between testing for Motopark, it was a quick trip to the UK for the Winter Series.

"We tried to do a deal for 2007 but failed, but we kept a very good relationship with him, which is why he came to do the Winter Series with us," says Kirkaldy. "He was a lovely lad, and his old man [cleaning company boss Rauno Bottas] was a top guy - one of the better [ie less disruptive] dads, shall we say!"

The Bottas family looked after the youngster's career at the time, but Rumpfkeil remembers that this changed during his 2008 battle with Red Bull Junior Ricciardo.

"His dad was doing it himself, and then the option with Toto Wolff arrived in 2008," he says.

"He had some offers on the table from all the big management teams - Gravity, Red Bull... But he wanted to do something with Mika Hakkinen, so that was created with Toto and Didier Coton."

Bottas cleaned up in the secondary Renault NEC series, winning 12 of the 14 races he started and claiming pole 13 times. As a consequence, he beat rookie team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa to the title by a long way. "The harshest benchmark Antonio could have was Valtteri," says Rumpfkeil.

Only at Zolder was his NEC run interrupted. "That was a screw-up," winces Rumpfkeil. "The track is always very hard on the car with kerb strikes, and a wishbone let go. You could say it was driver error, but it was also due to the nature of the track. You had to hammer the kerbs and if you didn't do that you couldn't get a lap time."

To be fair, the NEC series was just target practice for a driver as good as Bottas - his main Eurocup rivals spent their weekends off in the shortlived Western European Cup, but it was when they all came together that the sparks flew.

At the Spa Eurocup opener, there was a third and a 27th for Bottas. "Two times he got caught up in a crash on the way up the straight after Eau Rouge," says Rumpfkeil, "so he finished those races with quite a beaten-up car."

After a breakthrough win and a second at Silverstone, Motopark fell foul of the scrutineers at the Hungaroring. Bottas started from the rear and couldn't climb into the points, so with four double-header rounds remaining he faced a 38-point deficit (with 15 for a win) to Ricciardo.

"What we have seen the last couple of years is not the normal Valtteri" Timo Rumpfkeil

Then it all came good. Across the Nurburgring, Le Mans and Estoril rounds he claimed three wins, a second and two thirds, so that he arrived at the Barcelona finale one point ahead of Ricciardo.

"We were quite a long way down but that was one of Valtteri's strengths - he kept his head together," says Rumpfkeil. "We had a very strong weekend at Barcelona fighting against other elements...

"The problem was he qualified only 11th for race one. Qualifying started wet but it went to torrential rain, and the team-mate of Ricciardo put Valtteri off. The race was in drying-out conditions and he just drove superior to all the others. In those conditions Valtteri really excelled, to feel the grip - he really had an excellent feeling for conditions. He's not one of those drivers who just learns and applies things."

Bottas went from 11th on the grid to victory, and that meant his fourth place in the finale was enough for the title, even though Ricciardo won the race.

"The pressure didn't affect him at all," points out Rumpfkeil. "He kept his head cool without any ups or downs. Also, when you look back at the whole season, there were some circumstances but not really anything where you could point the finger at Valtteri."

Rumpfkeil adds that "for me he was a clear Formula 1 world champion", and Kirkaldy agrees about the star quality that was evident at the time.

"He was one of the few where you thought he'll definitely end up in F1," says the Scot, "but he didn't have a huge amount of cash. It's been surprising given how good he was that he got beaten so regularly by Hamilton, but when he does get it right he's exceptional, and he's so easy to work with."

Heikkinen remembers Bottas's switch to Motopark for 2008 as "the right move to go to a championship-winning team. But he was so down to earth and so strong that whatever team he went to he could have won. It was clear that he would be a professional driver - the biggest question was the financial side."

"I sometimes have a hard time following what went on there [at Mercedes]," says Rumpfkeil. "What we have seen the last couple of years is not the normal Valtteri.

"We had a joke since our first official Eurocup test in 2008. He was P1 at lunchtime and he was looking at the monitor, and really proud. I said, 'Get used to it, it's your normal position.'

"I sent him after the race in Melbourne a text saying, 'All back to normal, a natural position, keep it up.' And that's what we knew: the calm, zero-mistakes-on-the-limit Valtteri."