Wolff: Hamilton ‘barely made a mistake’ in 2018

I know what you mean - though Brown is equally effusive and dreamy about Alonso, despite Alonso arguably having been central to the demise of the Honda arrangement, a move that must (once again !!!) have cost McClaren tens of millions.....

He was certainly one of the faces of it, though the displeasure with the whole deal was pretty wellestablished in McLaren as it was. I think he was instrumental in Honda not wanting to supply McLaren with engines in Indycar though. As far as I've heard, they did not only lose their de facto title sponsor, being one of the more lucrative deals of the grid (sums vary, but count about oil money levels), they also had to pay Honda for breaking their contract, and that was worth about €100 million... I dont think McLaren really needed that kinda divorce bill.

And here might be an impopular opinion: for much of the season, I think Bottas did a better job than Kimi, and should with all right have ended up ahead of him in the points, yet Merc' put so much of their eggs in Hammy's bag that Bottas were completely screwed over and not only lost to Kimi, but to Max to boot.

Again, Bottas has nobody but himself to blame for under-performing and being relegated to wingman status. Not sure how you can objectively say he did better than Kimi. If you look at the data and metrics for the season(not to mention points, oops just did), it's pretty clear that Kimi had a better season than Bottas. What do you suggest teams do when one driver clearly is outperforming the other, throw your weight behind the driver who is lagging? I don't think so.

Nobody but himself? I think not. Yes, he is part of the problem, but believe me it took two to that tango: Bottas being slower and Merc' strategy putting all the eggs in Hammy's basket (Yes, I did repeat my point). Earlier the whole second driver thing used to be a give or take situation, whereas as of late, and especially with Hammy and Bottas, its just been take. And it worked for them this year, because Bottas managed to compensate for those setbacks. The points say jack shit about his performance due to those setbacks. Just look at the races in which he had to stay out, all the while being swallowed whole by prancing horses and sanguine bulls. Bottas performed worse this year, but Kimi only really came to life during the last races, other than that he was just there. Bottas actually tried to race when he wasnt C**kblocking.

I don't know if that's really fair. Bottas was definitely under-performing, especially in contrast to Ham. Bottas has nobody to blame but himself. If had performed better it would have been a much different season for him. Seems to me his scars are self inflicted.

I don't know why Renault faded and I don't know why Bottas stumbled after surpassing Kimi Raikkonen in points, but it didn't seem to be from some obvious Mercedes strategy. Valtteri seemed to be more upset by the bad Pirelli tyres, but Hamilton also cried that he couldn’t drive fast with them. And when I say Hamilton cried, I don't mean actually cried like Sebastian after he skidded off in Germany.
Really I don’t know why anyone wants to buy a brand new tyre that only lasts a half an hour. The Mercedes was hobbled by them and Valtteri could barely hang on at the end.

Bottas' problem, along with lacking some pace, is that he is too much of a team player. Come 2019, he need to start racing Hammy and ignore team orders. It'll lose him Hammy's grace though, and Im not sure he is willing to lose that.