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With Bottas all but confirmed now that Massa is confirmed at Williams, how will he do against Lewis? Lewis' team mates generally fair very well against him in terms of total points. In 8 out of 10 seasons, his team mate has got at least 83% of his points total.

Hamilton vs Rosberg
189 - 171 (90% of Hamilton)
384 - 317 (83%)
381 - 322 (85%)
385 - 390 (101%)

Hamilton vs Button
240 - 214 (89%)
227 - 270 (126%)
190 - 188 (99%)

Hamilton vs Kovalainen
98 - 53 (53%)
49 - 22 (44%)

Hamilton vs Alonso
109 - 109 (100%)

For his first year I'd expect him as less than 50%. Although, with the new regs coming in play, I wouldn't risk making a safe assumption.

I think he will do well. Getting a car that he can actually win with could motivate him, and if he's coming into a team where the other driver already feels like he's not being supported then...

Siao7 wrote:For his first year I'd expect him as less than 50%. Although, with the new regs coming in play, I wouldn't risk making a safe assumption.

That is a bold assumption.

Finishing second to Hamilton every single race with the odd race win when Hamilton has something go wrong would put him around 70%. It Lewis won every race, Bottas would have to basically be 4th every race to fall below 50%.

I think Bottas would have taken the 2016 title to the final races and certainly lead it after Malaysia, he would have won at very minimum 5-6 races even if he was considerably slower than Rosberg.

So far, 5 votes and one for each. I will bring this thread back up next season so get your opinions down now and we can enjoy bringing it back in the middle of next season. I am going for 80% but that could swing 10% either way given reliability and errors.

I went for the safe 75-89% option. It'd be nice to see another Danny Ric surprise but I've my doubts

I would put Bottas roughly at the same level as Rosberg and Button so went for 75-89%.

I'm going for a slightly optimistic 90-99%. My heart wants him to do well but my head sees him as Rosberg Mark II. Not a bad driver by any means, but just missing that edge

75-89%. But I'd really expect him to be from 70-80%.

I do't think he has the outright speed that warrants a seat at a top team. Lots of talk about him being a future champion in 2013 has dwindled and I wouldn't really expect him to become champion unless he was given a Button situation.

It's very dependent on how well you'd expect Red Bull and co. to be next year. If Mercedes dominates, then Bottas should have roughly 72% ((18/25)*4) of Hamilton's points if he takes on a number two role. Red Bull to come into the mix and Bottas to beat Hamilton very occasionally, and I would anticipate his points to be in the region between 70 and 80% given the fact that the difference between 2nd, 3rd and 4th is much smaller than that of 1st and 2nd.

Around about 75% in the first season against him and around about 85-90% in the second season, assuming that they will be team-mates for such a time.

102%

To be fair to him, we dont know how it wil be set up. Will he be free to fight? or is he there to back up Hamiltons game (at least for this year)

I think you Lewis supporters are going to be surprised. Valteri has incredible pace and makes very few mistakes. It's as if he is never under pressure. In many ways, he's better positioned to beat Lewis that Nico was. With a little luck, it's entirely possible that Bottas will be champion next year. Which isn't to take anything away from Lewis. He's obviously next year's favorite unless RB pull out a winner.

netdog wrote:I think you Lewis supporters are going to be surprised. Valteri has incredible pace and makes very few mistakes. It's as if he is never under pressure. In many ways, he's better positioned to beat Lewis that Nico was. With a little luck, it's entirely possible that Bottas will be champion next year. Which isn't to take anything away from Lewis. He's obviously next year's favorite unless RB pull out a winner.

Why would fans of Lewis be surprised any more than the majority of more neutral fans, who generally rate Hamilton as a better driver than Bottas?

lamo wrote:

Siao7 wrote:For his first year I'd expect him as less than 50%. Although, with the new regs coming in play, I wouldn't risk making a safe assumption.

That is a bold assumption.

Finishing second to Hamilton every single race with the odd race win when Hamilton has something go wrong would put him around 70%. It Lewis won every race, Bottas would have to basically be 4th every race to fall below 50%.

I think Bottas would have taken the 2016 title to the final races and certainly lead it after Malaysia, he would have won at very minimum 5-6 races even if he was considerably slower than Rosberg.

You are right, I probably didn't give him enough credit. I will try to change my vote!

I think probably somewhere around 70-80%, but it depends a lot on the car. I'm not actually expecting the Merc to be dominant next year, so I went for 50-75% - I think in a very good but not dominant car, Lewis will pull out the exceptional results better than Bottas will, and that will result in a roughly Perez/Hulk like split of points.

Invade wrote:

netdog wrote:I think you Lewis supporters are going to be surprised. Valteri has incredible pace and makes very few mistakes. It's as if he is never under pressure. In many ways, he's better positioned to beat Lewis that Nico was. With a little luck, it's entirely possible that Bottas will be champion next year. Which isn't to take anything away from Lewis. He's obviously next year's favorite unless RB pull out a winner.

Why would fans of Lewis be surprised any more than the majority of more neutral fans, who generally rate Hamilton as a better driver than Bottas?

Yes it wouldn't really be Hamilton fans that would be looking not to rate Bottas as such.

I just think that Bottas will do worse than Nico - reliability/accidents etc aside.

But it's up to him - and I hope he proves me wrong and makes a great contest with LH - as long as the Merc isn't too far ahead of others so we have a genuine chance of a WDC from different teams for the first time in a while

I think he'll do about as well as Rosberg, but he could be better or worse. Will be interesting to see. As long as it's not a Kovalainen round 2, that was so painful for me

Covalent wrote:I think he'll do about as well as Rosberg, but he could be better or worse. Will be interesting to see. As long as it's not a Kovalainen round 2, that was so painful for me

I would advise Bottas to go and talk to Rosberg. He is heading for a very difficult team situation indeed.

Heikki once said in an interview that he knew what happened at McLaren. I would love to find out his views on that period, and on McLaren's selection process. With Stoffel going into a full time race seat, I can't help but feel some appehension after the 'mistakes' they made with Heikki and Checo.

Fiki wrote:

Covalent wrote:I think he'll do about as well as Rosberg, but he could be better or worse. Will be interesting to see. As long as it's not a Kovalainen round 2, that was so painful for me

I would advise Bottas to go and talk to Rosberg. He is heading for a very difficult team situation indeed.

Heikki once said in an interview that he knew what happened at McLaren. I would love to find out his views on that period, and on McLaren's selection process. With Stoffel going into a full time race seat, I can't help but feel some appehension after the 'mistakes' they made with Heikki and Checo.

Indeed, I'd love to read Heikki's book if it is ever written.

I think he'll do well, but with RBR edging closer and Ferrari desperate to move forward, he may find himself outside the top six every now and then.

At this stage it's impossible to tell until we get to Melbourne. Even testing won't prove anything.

Keep this thread for the end of next season though....

Fiki wrote: Heikki once said in an interview that he knew what happened at McLaren. I would love to find out his views on that period, and on McLaren's selection process. With Stoffel going into a full time race seat, I can't help but feel some appehension after the 'mistakes' they made with Heikki and Checo.

I think Vandoorne is in a better position now than the aforementioned: Alonso's time is nearly up and McLaren know it very well, and at this point no reasonable person is questioning Vandoorne's talent. They don't have a young driver ready in their programme either so they would know it's in their best interest to give him all the support he needs to succeed and be ready to lead the team in a few years.

Fiki wrote:

Covalent wrote:I think he'll do about as well as Rosberg, but he could be better or worse. Will be interesting to see. As long as it's not a Kovalainen round 2, that was so painful for me

I would advise Bottas to go and talk to Rosberg. He is heading for a very difficult team situation indeed.

Heikki once said in an interview that he knew what happened at McLaren. I would love to find out his views on that period, and on McLaren's selection process. With Stoffel going into a full time race seat, I can't help but feel some appehension after the 'mistakes' they made with Heikki and Checo.

If Heikki was any good he would have bounced back after his McLaren experience, setting your car up to be quick in qualifying seems to fool a lot of people. Yes his car was more heavy for the start of the race but that doesn't explain lack of performance throughout the race.

MistaVega23 wrote:I think he'll do well, but with RBR edging closer and Ferrari desperate to move forward, he may find himself outside the top six every now and then.

At this stage it's impossible to tell until we get to Melbourne. Even testing won't prove anything.

Keep this thread for the end of next season though....

I guess some people just don't rate Bottas at all?

pokerman wrote:

MistaVega23 wrote:I think he'll do well, but with RBR edging closer and Ferrari desperate to move forward, he may find himself outside the top six every now and then.

At this stage it's impossible to tell until we get to Melbourne. Even testing won't prove anything.

Keep this thread for the end of next season though....

I guess some people just don't rate Bottas at all?

I just don't think we've seen anything from him yet that screams 'future WDC' yet. He's consistent, but how he'll fare in a new team, new car and new team mate is anyone's guess.

Many people wrote off Ricciardo before 2014. And we all know how that turned out.

To be honest anyone apart from Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Verstappen are unknown quantities in a 'top' car.

Valtteri could match Lewis lap for lap. Or he could be destroyed. We'll see.

Oh, forgot to mention in my previous post: I voted 50-75% but reckon it'll be somewhere around 70%.

I mean, the main reason I'm thinking he'll do less well than Rosberg is because I'm making the assumption that Mercedes won't be as dominant next year and there won't be automatic first place finishes if one driver messes up. As such, even if he's as good as Rosberg I expect him to pick up a lesser percentage of Hamilton's total.

Really hard to say. He didn't overly impress me I have to be honest for the first 18 months of the battle with Massa but since last summer has put him away comfortably, Alonso-esque qualifying record and at least in the dry dominated Felipe.

Also thought he did quite well as a rookie but a bit inconsistent which is normal. One standout qualifying in Canada especially.

I'm gonna learn my lesson after 2014 and Dan and say he does well against Lewis, similarly to Nico so whatever he got I'll go for that.

MistaVega23 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

MistaVega23 wrote:I think he'll do well, but with RBR edging closer and Ferrari desperate to move forward, he may find himself outside the top six every now and then.

At this stage it's impossible to tell until we get to Melbourne. Even testing won't prove anything.

Keep this thread for the end of next season though....

I guess some people just don't rate Bottas at all?

I just don't think we've seen anything from him yet that screams 'future WDC' yet. He's consistent, but how he'll fare in a new team, new car and new team mate is anyone's guess.

Many people wrote off Ricciardo before 2014. And we all know how that turned out.

To be honest anyone apart from Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Verstappen are unknown quantities in a 'top' car.

Valtteri could match Lewis lap for lap. Or he could be destroyed. We'll see.

Well apparently we can say Sainz is a future star despite being beaten by Verstappen and his only scalp being an out of sorts Kvyat, whilst Bottas is unbeaten against teammates which includes a driver that came close to being a WDC but Bottas himself has not shown the same qualities?

If they make a car that is the dominant beast then I think he'll do about 60-70% of the points. Roughly meaning Hamilton 1st and Bottas second most races.

If the top cars are much more competitive than the last few years I see that number dropping. I'd take Hamilton to make things happen a lot more frequently than Bottas. If there is traffic or a tight fight against a Ferrari or Red Bull for instance, I think Hamilton is more likely to win the team mate battle than Bottas. But the gaps between points are much less considerable. So Bottas, relatively speaking, would probably do better despite being farther behind.

I would guess that the actual number will fall 60-80% though that's a reasonably wide berth.

As I like to bring up, I was sure Hamilton would destroy JB in their time together. I thought Hamilton would be a long way ahead of Rosberg. I thought Vettel would smash Ricciardo. I thought Max being promoted to RBR in the middle of the season wouldn't happen and Ricciardo would embarass him. I suck at predictions.

the ratio of lewis 3wdc, nico 1wdc, is about right , and I think bottas might be about the same ratio looking forward

So you are predicting 6 WDCs for Hamilton, that would probably settle the argument!

should the title be changed to "how will valentino rossi do against hamilton?"

pc27b wrote:should the title be changed to "how will valentino rossi do against hamilton?"

I know it's trivial, but I am curious to see what V.Rossi and Ogier can do in the Merc on a special one-off test day for the two.

If I'm correct to believe Red Bull are going to be right there with Merc this year, I'd actually say quite a low amount, maybe 65%. I could see a lot of weekends where Hamilton is as quick (or quicker) than the two Red Bulls, but Bottas finds himself as the slowest of the four, enabling Lewis to outscore him quick comfortably. Of course, if I'm wrong about Red Bull's pace relative to Mercedes' then I'd bump that percentage up to around 80-85%, simply because there will be far more opportunities for Bottas to finish 2nd, and even win races on weekends where Lewis has some kind of bad luck.

If the Merc has a pace advantage similar to that of 2016: 89%

If it is not the quickest car: 70%

I hate the percent stuff. If you finish every race right on your teammate's tail, the percentage can be much different if you finish 1-2 every race, or 4-5 every race.

This is a terrible metric.

ReservoirDog wrote:I hate the percent stuff. If you finish every race right on your teammate's tail, the percentage can be much different if you finish 1-2 every race, or 4-5 every race.

This is a terrible metric.

One reason why I'm not voting. This is incredibly unlikely to happen but if Hamilton and Bottas finished 9th and 10th with Hamilton ahead every time, Hamilton will have 100% more points. Even if Bottas was right on his tail like you say, does that fact that Hamilton has 100% more points make him that much better? I'm just not going to vote as these percentages don't really make sense.

ReservoirDog wrote:I hate the percent stuff. If you finish every race right on your teammate's tail, the percentage can be much different if you finish 1-2 every race, or 4-5 every race.

This is a terrible metric.

Agreed.