Formula 1

VALTTERI BOTTAS FINISHES 6TH AT THE ARCTIC RALLY

Published

2 years ago

17/01/2021

Valtteri Bottas first took part in the Arctic Rally in January 2019 and recorded a stage win and finished fifth overall. In December of the same year, he won the Paul Ricard-based Rallycircuit Cote d’Azur.

Last year, he returned to the Artic Rally , driving a Citroen DS3 WRC car. The Finn could not repeat his success from his first appearance of this event and ended up ninth overall.

Valtteri Bottas has competed in the Arctic Lapland Rally for the third consecutive year and once again finished in the top 10.

Bottas and his co-driver Timo Rautiainen finished sixth overall in a Citroen DS3 World Rally Car. The rally was won by Juho Hanninen in a Toyota Yaris World Rally Car. Valtteri was happy with his performance.

While Bottas was sixth overall, he nevertheless achieved a podium finish in his class – although in fairness, there were only four entrants in that category.

Nevertheless, it was still an improvement on last year in the outright classification for the 31-year-old, who was ninth in 2020, but still down on his 2019 finishing position of fifth.

“We finished 6th overall with Timo,” the Finn wrote on Twitter.

“That’s our third Arctic Rally finish in a row. So much fun, yet challenging.”

Before the event, Bottas compared rally driving to Formula 1.

“First of all, rally cars at this level are obviously four-wheel drive, so that makes the driving style quite different and you really need to slide the car sometimes,” the Finn told Pirelli.

“Then you have to drive while you’re listening to someone else. In F1, I would say the driving is more precise because we know the lap, the corner and every single kerb and bump by heart, so it’s really exact.

Regarding the temperament required to compete in different disciplines, he added: “I would say it’s a very mental thing. There are physical demands too, but mentally you need the concentration, motivation and the will to always want to improve.

“You need to be a bit selfish as well as self-critical in everything you do and you need to be really precise. And of course you need to be able to control your emotions.”

“Rallying is more improvised,” concluded Bottas.