The dark horse that should be taking F1 2018 by storm

If things had gone differently in the three most recent races, Valtteri Bottas might have scored a hat-trick. The Finn needed to up his game to earn a new contract at Mercedes, and his form so for this campaign suggests that's what he's done.

Jonathan Noble May 4, 2018, 10:20 AM

Upd: May 4, 2018, 10:58 AM

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Heartbroken. Painful. Hurt. Terrible.

These were the words that Valtteri Bottas used to describe how he felt after losing victory in Baku with a late puncture. He was right to cheekily suggest that the only real cure to get over the disappointment was to go out and drink 10 pints of beer.

But however hazy his head might have been on Monday morning, Bottas would be well advised to take a step back from the immediate gut-wrenching torment of the blow-out, and instead reflect on a campaign that has been much better than his results show.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.