‘Lewis Hamilton almost made me quit F1 – to this day I have complicated feelings’

Valtteri Bottas has opened up on being understudy to Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes and why he almost made him quit Formula 1.\

Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton were teammates at Mercedes. (Image: Getty)

Valtteri Bottas has revealed how being “wingman” to seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton drove him to the edge of depression and made him hate Formula One. The Finn has also detailed his two-year battle with an eating disorder for the first time in a bravely candid reflection on his racing career.

Bottas spent five seasons as team-mate to Hamilton at Mercedes. But the 2017 promotion from Williams that he had lobbied Toto Wolff for after Nico Rosberg’s shock retirement did not yield the success he expected.

“First season was good,” he wrote in the Players’ Tribune. “I started the 2018 season thinking that I was the best driver on the grid, and that I was going to win the championship.” But Bottas didn’t win a race, having had to sacrifice multiple victories to help Hamilton beat Sebastian Vettel to the title.

“Do you know how badly I wanted to just say no?” he said. “But I had to be a good team-mate. I let him through, and of course he had an incredible season. He was the champion. I was ‘the wingman’.

“To this day, I have complicated feelings about it. I don’t know how to answer when people ask me about it, because Lewis is an incredible driver and a friend. I have no bad blood with Mercedes or Toto or anyone. But the whole situation almost made me walk away from the sport.

“The old me came back. The negative Valtteri. The obsessive Valtteri. I was reading too many comments on social media, and I started to become very self-loathing. Thankfully, I had the tools from my experience in 2014 to understand what was happening, and I had plenty of support.”

Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton were teammates at Mercedes earlier in their career. (Image: Getty)

Bottas was referring to his battle with an eating disorder early in his F1 career. While results behind the wheel were good, off track he was being “completely consumed” by the problem. He recalled: “It was like a game to me. I’d wake up and weigh myself every morning, and when I’d see the number go down, I’d feel a deep satisfaction.

“After two months of spiralling, my nerves were shot. I would wake up at 4am on my own, no alarm. I was like a drug addict, ‘I’ve never felt better!’ Ha. Completely delusional. The actual reason I was waking up so early was that my body was in starvation mode.

“I didn’t find joy in anything anymore. When I was back home, I was just so angry and negative about everything. I remember my ex asking me if I ever worry when I’m in the car, because it’s so dangerous. I said, ‘No. If I die, I die’.

“At that moment, I realized that I genuinely did not care what happened to me anymore. Not long after that, I decided to get some help. I started seeing a psychologist, and I finally admitted out loud that I was unwell. It took me almost two years to feel like myself again.”

But Bottas started to spiral again during that 2018 season in which Hamilton got all the glory and the Finn lived in the his shadow. Bottas added: “I was definitely depressed and burnt out. I hated racing. During that winter break before the 2019 season, I did not think that I was going to come back.

“That winter break, I made the decision that I was going to retire. Then I went for a walk one day in the forest. I walked in the deep snow for maybe three hours and I walked out of those woods with a completely different mindset.”

He began 2019 with a win by more than 20 seconds in the 2019 season opener in Melbourne. Hamilton would again become world champion, but Bottas went on to win 10 Grands Prix over five seasons at Mercedes.

After a stint with Sauber, he dropped off the grid last year but has returned with newcomers Cadillac. He has an uncompetitive car and scoring even a single point in 2026 will be a challenge, though Bottas insists: “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I’m the best driver I’ve ever been.

“Coming back to Melbourne for the opening race this season was the most special moment of my entire career. Even more special than my first race. Coming into work every day is a pleasure and that is so rare in this world of F1. This is just the beginning of our journey and that’s so exciting to me.”