Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has admitted he would be “surprised” if Mercedes drop Valtteri Bottas and replace him with George Russell before the end of the season.
It was reported by the Daily Mail newspaper on Tuesday that Bottas, who is already 37 points behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton after just three rounds, could be relieved of his duties by the Silver Arrows.
The Finn, 31, in his fifth season with the world champions, started on pole at last weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix but fell away to finish third.
Russell, 23, is waiting in the wings after excelling as a replacement for a Covid-hit Hamilton at the Sakhir GP in December. He would have won and beaten Bottas but for a poor Mercedes pit-stop and late puncture.
Russell, a junior driver for the Silver Arrows, continues to impress at Williams, and qualified 11th at Portimao in his uncompetitive machinery.
But Red Bull boss Horner, whose team have a track record of mid-season driver swaps, does not believe Mercedes will adopt their blueprint.
Speaking to the PA news agency, Horner said: “Valtteri has demonstrated he can drive the car very quickly.
“Circumstances are always going to happen so let’s see how things pan out, but Valtteri has done a great job for Mercedes over the last few years.
“I would be surprised if they did switch Valtteri and George around mid-season.”
It may well be in Horner’s interest to see Bottas remain with Mercedes given his struggles.
Red Bull are only 18 points adrift of the Silver Arrows in the constructors’ championship, while Max Verstappen trails Hamilton by just eight points ahead of this week’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Publicly, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Bottas, who crashed out in Imola following a coming together with Russell, has the full support of the grid’s all-conquering outfit.
The Austrian said: “Valtteri will be on top form. When you consider where he came from following Imola, which was a write-off, he put it on pole in Portugal and had a solid race.
“We will push him hard, continue to support him and see what he is capable of doing in Barcelona.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here