This would probably be better. Is Hamilton really brilliant. Or is bottas not so good.
Shame in f1 you get so few comparisons like this.
Certainly Hamilton is that good, a definite great of his generation at least, but Bottas isn't a rubbish driver - he's just up against one of the best.
Bottas has shown he can be as quick as anyone on the grid, but it's a whole other level to repeat that lap after lap for the duration of a race, and that's where Hamilton has improved dramatically in the hybrid era. I do think that, like Vettel, Hamilton lost a bit of his outright speed in the switch to these heavy buses, but unlike Vettel Hamilton has added a steely relentlessness and consistency to his race pace, a bit like how Alonso was, especially on his return to Renault and at Ferrari.
I don't think Russell will pose too much of a threat to Hamilton if Mercedes require that, on the condition that Russell has it written into his contract that he becomes at least an equal within a certain time frame or whenever Hamilton retires. Russell would be stupid to ruin the chance of a long contract at Mercedes by posing a risk to both cars for some short-term marker against Hamilton in likely his last two or three seasons.
No, the risk with Russell is that his race pace is still a massive question mark. Sure, he performed well at Sakhir compared to Bottas, but as I've said that's was a unique race which shouldn't be used as a yardstick, and his Williams performances hardly scream a master of race pace, as he's often not always that far up the road from Latifi and inevitably slipping down the order after a brilliant qualifying. That's almost certainly down to the supposed Williams flaws as much as it is the driver's style, but from a Mercedes point of view you can see why they might have reservations.
