Valtteri Bottas Admits It Was Difficult to Be Lewis Hamilton’s Partner, Formula 1 Driver Lost Out on Bonus

• The Formula 1 season begins in March with Valterri Bottas joining the Alfa Romeo team from Mercedes
• Alfa Romeo driver Valterri Bottas spoke about the challenge of working with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes
• Valtteri Bottas lost out on bonus money as a result of Lewis Hamilton failing to win the Driver's Championship last season

Finnish Formula 1 driver Valtteri Bottas will join Alfa Romeo for the new season and has opened up about his time at Mercedes. Bottas joined the Mercedes team at the start of the 2017 season.

While he served as a great team player at Mercedes, helping them to four consecutive Constructors Championships, he admitted that it was a challenge being partners with Lewis Hamilton.

According to Wheels24, Bottas said that being Hamilton’s partner was ‘more challenging than most would imagine.’ He also said he understood why Nico Rosberg left the sport after his titanic battle for the title with Hamilton while they were teammates.

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As reported by the Wheels24 article, Bottas also admitted that he had lost out on bonus money when Hamilton didn’t win the Driver’s Championship last season. Hamilton was beaten to the title by Max Verstappen on the final lap of the last race of the season.

While he didn’t go into detail, Bottas explained that ‘certain bonuses were linked to certain achievements’ and as a result, he didn’t get a bonus when Hamilton didn’t win the title.

When does the new Formula 1 season start?

The new Formula 1 season begins on 20 March at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Formula1.Com confirmed. Racing fans won’t have to wait too long for some action though. Starting from 10 February, the teams will start to unveil their new cars for the season.

Pre-season testing will then get underway with two weekends scheduled for teams to test. The first will get underway on the weekend of February 23 while the second will begin on the weekend of 10 March.

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South Africa's Shau Mafuna hired by Mercedes' Formula 1 team, gets approval from Lewis Hamilton

In other Mercedes news, South Africa's Shau Mafuna will fly the flag high for Mzansi when he serves as a mechanical engineer for the Mercedes Formula 1 team in the 2022 season, Sports Brief earlier reported.

Mafuna has dual Belgian and South African citizenship and has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Wits University as well as a Master's Degree in Motorsport Engineering from Oxford Brookes University.

Mafuna was hired for the post after working at the Mercedes' Work Experience Academy (WEA) programme, Sportskeeda reported. The WEA programme encouraged youngsters from diverse backgrounds to get into science, technology, engineering and maths fields.