Why ruthless 'new Bottas' is a real title threat

The Valtteri Bottas who defiantly told persons unknown where to go after his dominant victory in the Australian Grand Prix was very different to the meeker character who admitted he simply wanted a chastening season over in Abu Dhabi last November.

Only he will really know what he did in the intervening months to rebuild, regroup and regenerate himself, but its effectiveness was undeniable.

Bottas's Albert Park performance was not one of a dead man walking at Mercedes, but of one who had to send a message that he wasn't going to relinquish a place with the best team in grand prix racing without a fight.

His performance was a statement of intent for a driver who recently admitted he didn't feel he had "achieved anything" in F1. Its style and execution had echoes of the previous incumbent of his Mercedes seat, Nico Rosberg, whose resilience ensured he kept picking himself up to go again when lesser mortals would have folded.

Yes, Bottas's 21-second margin of victory over team-mate Lewis Hamilton was distorted by the damage at the rear of the floor sustained by the other Mercedes on lap four of the race, plus strategic variation.

But while Bottas had qualified 0.112s behind Hamilton, what was missed by many amid the excitement of Mercedes' true pace advantage being revealed was that Bottas was every bit as fast as the world champion. That his hypothetical fastest lap on Saturday afternoon was just six thousandths off Hamilton's pole position time proved it.

The key to Bottas's win was the start. The advantage Hamilton earned by breaking the Melbourne qualifying lap record, 0.678s faster than he managed last year, was squandered in an instant.

His initial move was decisive, but he lost out in the second phase of the launch and later suggested this was down to a touch of wheelspin thanks to being "too much engaged with the clutch".

Bottas was ahead even before he had reached the point where the pit exit road meets the track, and knew the race was his to lose.

Hamilton held second, assisted by Vettel being fractionally slow away. While the lead Ferrari driver, seven tenths down in qualifying, did get a slight run on the Mercedes, he was more concerned with covering Max Verstappen on the run to Turn 1.

With Vettel taking a tighter line into the opening right/left thanks to positioning his car defensively, new team-mate Charles Leclerc attempted to barrel around the outside.

The Ferraris came frighteningly close to touching when Leclerc had his left-side wheels skimming the grass. With Leclerc all over the kerbs, Verstappen was able to sweep around the outside to reclaim the fourth place he had started in.

Bottas immediately checked out, pulling a lead of 1.074s by the end of the first lap. With Hamilton picking up floor damage on lap four just ahead of the rear-left tyre in an area crucial for aerodynamically sealing the underfloor, not through any obvious misadventure, Bottas was able to establish a handy cushion at the front.

By the time Hamilton was forced to peel into the pitlane relatively early at the end of lap 15 in response to Vettel's attacking stop of a lap earlier, Bottas was 4.3s to the good.

That margin was key, because it ensured he was clear of any fear of an undercut. So Mercedes could confidently cover Vettel with Hamilton and leave Bottas out. Bottas could then extend his stint on his starting set of soft tyres eight laps longer than his team-mate.

As Bottas was firmly lapping in the 1m27s bracket in this phase of the race, any risk of Verstappen being sat in his virtual safety car window were Bottas to pit was quickly eliminated and he was able to stop at his leisure on lap 23 of the 58 and emerge just 6.1s behind Verstappen and still in second place.

"It's a bit of a fairytale - don't let others break you, believe in yourself" Toto Wolff

With Hamilton now 11s behind, Bottas had a vice-like grip on this race. The only outstanding question was whether he would have a tilt at fastest lap and the extra point that now comes with it.

The team ruled out a pitstop for fresh rubber. Although he had a big enough gap to do so, Mercedes rightly felt this was an unnecessary risk for a single point. But, despite instructions not to go for it, Bottas was among the drivers able to prep for a push lap.

On the penultimate lap, he banged in a 1m25.580s on tyres that already had 33 laps on them, which was 1.540s quicker than his second best and, crucially, almost half a second faster than Hamilton's attempt.

Bottas crossed the line 20.886s ahead of Hamilton to take his first victory since the final race of 2017 and get his season off to the perfect start.

His spontaneous exclamation over the radio showed how much this meant to him, and his comments after the race proved he'd used the criticism that's part and parcel of elite sport if you aren't performing to the maximum as a way to motivate himself to new heights.

This was Bottas with a cutting edge we haven't publicly seen before, one that - if sustained - could give him the streak of ruthlessness you need at this level.

"Since I started to work with drivers 15 years ago, I tried to comprehend what's going on in their brains - and I don't," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, who was once part of Bottas's management team.

"How he recovered from being written off as not being up to the job in the second half of last year to one of the most dominant victories that we've seen in recent years just shows us human potential and how much it is a mind thing.

"It's a bit of a fairytale - don't let others break you, believe in yourself. He's just showed us the whole weekend. There was not one single session where he wasn't good enough."

Elite sport is a mental game. There's not a massive difference between most of the drivers in the field in terms of pace on a given lap, but the best - such as Hamilton - can do it lap after lap, race after race, season after season.

Bottas had not managed that up to now, and it will take more than one race to prove this change is permanent, but if the driver that excelled at Albert Park turns up consistently he's going to be formidable in 2019.

Bottas himself rated this as his best performance, and so he should - not only because of what he did behind the wheel, but because the circumstances of his 2018 would have broken a lesser man.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing is that this is not traditionally a strong circuit for Bottas, who is usually at his best on smooth surfaces such as Sochi. Another hint he might now be a top gun for all conditions.

"It just felt amazing today, I can't say for which reason in particular," said Bottas. "I know if you look at the statistics from the past, it's never been my best race. I think race pace has always been OK, but qualifying a little bit tricky, and I've never had a clean race here.

"When you approach a weekend, you know that 'OK I'm a bit better here', or normally it's a bit more difficult.

"Every race you try to zero that and try to be mentally empty for the weekend and not think about it. That's something that I managed to do this weekend with a decent qualifying, and then a very good race. Coming back here next year will be a lot easier."

While Bottas's dominant performance allowed him to exorcise the ghosts of the second half of 2018 and emerge a driver reborn, the battle behind was a little less straightforward.

Hamilton ultimately held on to second place, but had to keep an eye on Verstappen. The Red Bull driver, newly powered by Honda, had pitted on lap 25 and rejoined back in the fourth place he started in. But Ferrari's weekend was turning from bad to worse and Verstappen quickly reeled in Vettel's 3.2s advantage.

Two laps past half distance, he forced Vettel to defend the inside line into Turn 1 - which allowed Verstappen a run up to the Turn 3 right-hander. The Red Bull was able to get far enough ahead by the time they turned in that Vettel had no choice but to cede.

Not only did Verstappen pass Vettel, he then proceeded to lap an average of 1.3s faster than Vettel to the end of the race. The result was a podium on the Red Bull-Honda alliance's debut, the first time one of the Japanese automotive giant's F1 engines has finished in the top three since the 2008 British GP.

Vettel was struggling so much that Leclerc, who had suffered an off-track moment at Turn 1 in the first stint but showed good pace in the second on a more orthodox strategy, caught him.

"All weekend, I didn't get that confidence that I had in Barcelona" Sebastian Vettel

Leclerc was asked to hold station when he enquired about passing his team-mate for fourth while on mediums 14 laps younger. With a big advantage over Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, who was best of the midfield runners throughout the grand prix after jumping team-mate Romain Grosjean at the start, Ferrari didn't have to worry about pressure from behind so opted not to allow its drivers to race.

So what went wrong for Ferrari? It headed to Australia as clear favourite, but Vettel was 0.704s off in qualifying and 57s down in the race. Ferrari was not beaten in Australia, it was obliterated.

First and foremost, it's important to note there was no hint of this in pre-season testing. Ferrari was fastest, and that's what the private internal analysis of every single grand prix team - including Mercedes - had concluded.

"What I was shown and led to believe from the analysis that we were given was that they were ahead," confirmed Hamilton.

"Obviously, it wasn't the case this weekend and I'm not sure why their performance was how it was.

"We wouldn't say that we've particularly over-delivered, we did our normal job. I don't know what their problem was but I'm sure they will come back strong in the next races."

It's clear Mercedes has made gains since testing, but the idea it was deliberately sandbagging disregards the defining factor of pre-season for the Silver Arrows.

After running in the first test with one spec of car, it brought a wide-ranging upgrade to the second test that impacted most, if not all, of the aerodynamic surfaces of the car. Having started from close to scratch, it made good progress.

If Mercedes had started with that version it's likely the picture would have been different after two tests. With progress made in understanding how to get the best out of the car in the intervening two weeks, Mercedes was simply better in Australia than it was in Spain.

Ferrari also had a notably problematic weekend. During Friday practice, it struggled for rear grip in particular but the hope was it would make one of its trademark transformations overnight into Saturday.

Instead the pace disadvantage remained all weekend. While an improved Mercedes was operating well, Ferrari was all over the place.

"Way less grip," was Vettel's explanation for the difference between the car in Australia and in testing.

"In Barcelona we were very happy with the car right from day one. The balance was right, the car was responding to what I was asking it to do. I had a lot of confidence.

"All weekend, I didn't get that confidence that I had in Barcelona so I didn't have the car underneath to play around. It wasn't doing what I was asking.

"There were glimpses here and there that were really strong, and I think our performance in some corners was really good. But the majority of corners it wasn't.

"That's why we were slower than other people and lost out yesterday as well as today."

Ferrari's race performance was made to look even worse by the fact Vettel opted for the early stop to try and attack Hamilton. This weekend was nothing short of a disaster for a team that, while puzzled, is not panicking about its situation. Albert Park is an unusual circuit, and the next race at Sakhir should show whether Ferrari really is in trouble or not.

"Since Friday FP1 we never found the right balance on the car and we struggled with the tyres," said team principal Mattia Binotto. "We tried different set-up approaches during the weekend but I have to say we never concluded with the right balance.

"[We were] unhappy in qualifying yesterday and when you're in parc ferme that's what you've got.

"Generally speaking we didn't find the right balance. We were lacking grip. Did we understand that yet? Probably not. It's something where we need to go back, analyse all the data and try to assess what happened."

While it's strange to regard a Mercedes victory in the opening grand prix as a surprise, given what happened in pre-season it was a shock. But what was really unexpected was Bottas, whose victory in Australia was a triumph of mind over matter.

"In sport and especially in this sport the confidence you get from the results is a massive help, and it can boost you a lot," said Bottas.

"Even though there will be difficult times during every season, you always remember the good ones, and you get strength from knowing that you've been able to do something like today.

"Obviously after having a year without a win, without getting the absolute result you wanted, it's going to be a big boost for this year.

"It's a perfect start to the year, very different to last year, so we just need to really keep it up and build from what we've learned as a team this weekend and from myself."

Last year, Bottas became trapped in a downward spiral that would have destroyed most. His Australian victory has given him fresh start, new hope and - if he keeps it up - might just have added a new title contender to the mix.