Why Bottas may force Alonso to Renault
A top-drawer drive from Valtteri Bottas in Russia was the sort of performance that will make Mercedes keen to retain the Finn in 2018. So what might that mean for on-the-market Fernando Alonso?
It was Flavio Briatore who years ago said that Kimi Raikkonen made Mika Hakkinen sound like Jerry Lewis, but if Kimi is indeed a man of few words, sometimes he uses them to express a simple truth, as at Sochi last Sunday: "We [Ferrari] lost out at the start - and then not a lot happened after that..."
Fortunately, a comatose Russian Grand Prix was resuscitated by its tense closing laps, but the circuit at Sochi, which reminds one more than anything of the now defunct Valencia, does not represent F1 circuit guru Hermann Tilke's finest hour. There is one decent corner - a quick left-hander that goes on for ever - but mainly it is long straights and pedestrian 90-degree turns.
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