The official narrative of a certain Formula 1 campaign is simple: Lewis Hamilton secured a World Championship, consolidating his dominance at Mercedes, while teammate Valtteri Bottas finished fifth overall, a distant supporting figure to the historic triumph.

But the story told by the final standings is a cold, calculated lie.

Behind the smooth, polished facade of the championship tables lies a narrative of such relentless misfortune, mechanical treachery, and brutal political sacrifice that it pushed one of the grid’s most stoic competitors to the very brink. Bottas himself later confessed to going through a phase where he “almost quit my career” because he was “fed up with the F1 world” and convinced it was simply “cruel to me.”

That particular campaign was not a performance failure for Valtteri Bottas; it was a devastating, year-long collision with bad luck, turning what should have been a handful of victories and a solid championship finish into an agonizing lesson in humility. If you dig past the P5 on the results sheet, you uncover the true story of the season that fate stole.

The Decisive Blows of Random Chance

The pattern of misfortune began early, showing its teeth as early as Round 3 in China, a race that, on merit, belonged to Bottas.

After a strong qualifying, Bottas executed a perfect start, immediately climbing to P2. The early pit-stop phase saw Mercedes brilliantly execute the undercut, bringing Bottas in swiftly. A rapid out-lap saw him emerge ahead of Sebastian Vettel, seizing the lead of the Grand Prix. Bottas was in absolute command, his race pace stellar, cruising toward what seemed an inevitable victory.

Then, luck intervened with the devastating randomness of a coin flip.

An incident between two backmarkers caused debris on track, which necessitated a Safety Car. Crucially, Mercedes and Ferrari decided against pitting their leading drivers, keeping Bottas and Hamilton on older tyres to maintain track position. Red Bull chose to gamble, pitting both their drivers for fresh, soft tyres.

The gamble paid off spectacularly. Daniel Ricciardo, armed with superior grip, executed a series of sublime overtakes, culminating in the decisive move on Bottas to take the lead and the win. Without that Safety Car—triggered by a skirmish well behind him—Bottas would have won the race with ease. Instead, he was forced to settle for a deeply disappointing P2. A certain victory, snatched away by a minor incident involving two backmarkers.

The Heartbreak of Baku: Three Laps from Glory

The Chinese disaster was merely an appetizer for the unparalleled cruelty awaiting Bottas at Round 4 in Azerbaijan. The streets of Baku were chaotic, but once again, fortune initially seemed to favour the Finn.

Following a spate of incidents, including the infamous collision between the two Red Bulls that brought out a Safety Car, Bottas was perfectly placed. He had stayed out longer than the leaders and capitalised on the Safety Car timing to pit cheaply, emerging ahead of Vettel and Hamilton. On the restart, Vettel, desperate to reclaim the lead, locked up massively, dropping him down the order and leaving Bottas in a seemingly untouchable P1. With only a few laps remaining, Bottas was cruising. The win was sealed. He was about to secure his first victory of the season and redeem the China disappointment.

But lady luck delivered the ultimate sucker punch.

On the main straight, with just three laps to go, Bottas ran over unseen debris, almost certainly a consequence of the earlier chaos, causing a catastrophic rear-right puncture. His race was over. He limped back to the garage, retiring from the lead, scoring zero points. It was a cruel DNF, denying him not only the win but any points whatsoever. A podium, at minimum, was certain. The win, deserved. The result: absolute agony.

Mechanical Failures and Unavoidable Crashes

The mid-season provided no respite. Bottas’s run of bad luck became a consistent theme, a relentless, back-to-back sequence of misfortune that saw him unable to secure a championship footing.

First came France (Round 8). Starting from P2, Bottas was immediately punted out of podium contention at Turn 1 by Sebastian Vettel, who locked his front-left tyre and careered into the back of the Mercedes. The resultant puncture sent Bottas tumbling to the back of the grid, a position from which he could only recover to P7. Vettel immediately accepted full responsibility, calling it his mistake. It was a clear-cut case of Bottas being an innocent victim in a first-lap crash, his race ruined by another driver’s error.

Just one round later in Austria (Round 9), the car itself decided to betray him. Having secured pole position, he recovered well from a slightly poor start to hold P2 behind Hamilton. But the car suddenly slowed to a crawl. The radio message was grim: “My gearbox is gone.” It was a complete mechanical retirement, entirely out of his hands, ending his race from a probable podium finish.

This was a gut-wrenching sequence: a certain win lost to a Safety Car, a certain win lost to debris and a puncture, a certain podium lost to another driver’s mistake, and a certain podium lost to mechanical failure.

The Political Knife: When the Team Became the Cruelty

As the championship battle intensified between Hamilton and Vettel, the defining, and most soul-crushing, factor of Bottas’s season emerged: team orders. Bottas was officially designated the ‘wingman,’ his own ambitions sacrificed for the greater championship glory of his teammate.

The turning point was Germany (Round 11). Lewis Hamilton had a disastrous qualifying, starting P14 due to a hydraulics issue. Bottas was the lead Mercedes in P2 and a strong contender for the win. When Sebastian Vettel dramatically crashed out from the lead on a damp track, the Safety Car was deployed, creating a championship swing opportunity Mercedes could not afford to miss.

On the restart, Bottas, aggressive and smelling victory, challenged Hamilton for the lead, getting a couple of “little nibbles.” But the moment of truth was met with the now-infamous radio call from Chief Strategist James Vowles:

“Valtteri, it’s James. Please hold position. I’m sorry.”

In one short sentence, the message was clear: the team came first, and the win was Hamilton’s. Bottas simply replied: “Copy James.” He finished P2. While understandable from a team’s perspective—capitalizing on Vettel’s crash—it was another victory snatched from Bottas, this time by an order from his own garage.

The sacrifice was repeated even more starkly at the Russian Grand Prix (Round 16) in Sochi, historically a strong track for Bottas. He had secured pole position over Hamilton and was controlling the race beautifully, driving toward a merited victory. Then, the order came: “So you need to let Lewis by into turn 13 this lap.”

Bottas obliged, ceding the lead and the guaranteed 25 points to Hamilton, taking P2 and 18 points instead. Bottas was clearly the fastest and most deserving driver that weekend, yet he was forced to step aside.

The True Cost

The culmination of this season of relentless bad luck and political sacrifice was a deeply misleading championship result. Valtteri Bottas finished fifth overall with 247 points. He was just two points behind Max Verstappen (P4) and four points behind Kimi Räikkönen (P3).

Consider the points he lost through no fault of his own:

China: Lost a P1 (25 pts) to a P2 (18 pts) = 7 points lost.
Azerbaijan: Lost a certain P1 (25 pts) to a DNF (0 pts) = 25 points lost.
Austria: Lost a likely P2 (18 pts) to a DNF (0 pts) = 18 points lost.
Russia: Lost a P1 (25 pts) to a P2 (18 pts) due to team order = 7 points lost.

Even accounting for just these clear-cut instances, he lost approximately 57 points—a figure that would have easily placed him in P3, potentially even challenging Vettel for P2, completely altering the public perception of his campaign.

It is no wonder that Bottas considered quitting. The campaign in question was a statistical anomaly, a perfect storm of external forces conspiring against a driver who, on pure pace, deserved far better. He called it cruel, and based on the evidence—the safety car disaster, the heartbreaking puncture, the mechanical betrayal, and the crushing political orders—it was exactly that. The season did not reflect his performance; it reflected a rare, unyielding collision between a talented driver and the absolute worst that fate, and team strategy, could throw at him.

Yet, from this professional crucible, a more determined Bottas emerged, famously winning the first race of the following period in Australia, proving that while that difficult campaign almost broke him, it ultimately forged an even tougher competitor. The “cruel” season remains a legendary footnote in F1 history, a stark reminder that sometimes, the true story of a championship is found not at the top of the podium, but in the anguish of those who were denied their merited glory.