Valtteri Bottas speaks openly about mental health struggles during his time at Mercedes and reveals just how much the 2018 season weighed on him alongside Lewis Hamilton
“I can honestly say that in 2026, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.” With this sentence in a very personal piece for The Players’ Tribune, Valtteri Bottas comes as quite a surprise, because from a purely sporting perspective, the Finn is currently at the very back of the Formula 1 grid with his new employer, Cadillac.
The contrast with his time at Mercedes, when he won the Constructors’ World Championship five times in a row with the Silver Arrows between 2017 and 2021, could not be greater. The same applies to his emotional state—though in exactly the opposite direction.
For although he regularly fought for victories with Mercedes back then, at times he could hardly have been more unhappy. “I hated racing. During the winter break before the 2019 season, I didn’t think I’d be coming back,” Bottas reveals.
He had previously finished the 2018 season without a Grand Prix victory. Many fans remember the Russian Grand Prix in particular, where Bottas had to make way for his teammate Lewis Hamilton on the team’s orders.
“Do you know how much I would have loved to just say ‘no’?” admits the 36-year-old. “But I had to be a good teammate. I let him through, and of course he had an incredible season.” Hamilton ended up winning the world championship, while Bottas finished fifth in the standings.
Bottas: Was just the “wingman” for everyone
“It’s funny, because Lewis and I are friends,” Bottas emphasizes, “but Formula 1 is such a crazy sport. On the one hand, we all want to destroy each other. We’d do anything to improve our lap times by a millisecond. Anything to gain an advantage.”
“But sometimes your bosses tell you that it’s a team sport and you should ease off the gas and make room,” he explains. At the time, the public perception of Bottas as the number-two driver solidified. “He was the champion. I was the ‘wingman,’” he recalls.
Bottas owed this nickname to none other than Toto Wolff. “Bottas was a perfect wingman for Lewis,” the team boss said at the time in an interview with ORF after the Hungarian Grand Prix. Although Wolff later explained that he hadn’t meant his statement to be derogatory, by then it had already taken on a life of its own.
“To this day, I have mixed feelings about it,” Bottas explains, adding: “I don’t know how to respond when people bring it up, because Lewis is an incredible driver and a friend. I hold no grudge against Mercedes, Toto, or anyone else.”
“But the whole situation almost made me retire from the sport,” says Bottas, who was “depressed and burned out.” “During that winter break, I made the decision that I would retire,” the Finn recalls.
What the legendary Melbourne radio message meant
In the end, however, he decided against it. “I told myself: ‘If you come back, you’ll come back as the best driver on the grid,’” said Bottas, who subsequently went on to win the 2019 season opener in Melbourne after the winter break.
His subsequent radio message, “To whom it may concern: Fuck you!” remains legendary to this day. “I don’t regret saying that. But I’m not sure if people really understood what I meant by it,” explains Bottas.
“For me, it didn’t even come from a place of bitterness,” he emphasizes, explaining: “It was almost as if I had said ‘thank you.’” Although he didn’t win the world championship title in 2019 either, he did finish as runner-up behind Hamilton with four victories.
He drove for Mercedes until the end of 2021, then moved to Alfa Romeo. Since this season, he has been racing for the new Cadillac team—and, according to his own statement, is not only happier than ever before but also “the best driver I’ve ever been.”