Bottas admits he’s not '100 percent comfortable'

Valtteri Bottas admits he is lacking confidence in his Mercedes and says it has been contributing to his lack of pace compared to teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton took pole position and finished second in the Malaysia Grand Prix on Sunday despite Mercedes only having the third-fastest car all weekend, taking advantage of problems for the two Ferrari drivers. Bottas qualified in fifth place and finished in the same position – passed by Sebastian Vettel, who was recovering from last on the grid – some 44 seconds behind his teammate.

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"One thing has been the way of managing the tires," Bottas said when asked if there was a pattern to his struggles since the summer break. "Just by driving, managing the slip, the temperatures, I tend to quite easily overheat the surface of the tire and then when the bulk temperature of the tire versus the surface is not close enough then you lose quite a bit of grip.

"In some places that has been my issue and I think it's – after such a bad run in a few races – just pure confidence in the car and trusting in your own skills and being 100 percent comfortable. That makes a massive difference and definitely [in Malaysia] I haven't been 100 percent comfortable.

"It's never a good thing when you jump in the car and you don't feel 100 percent secure and you don't know 100 percent you can be the absolute quickest, then it's never good. So I just need to get that back and need to get that feeling of enjoying the driving and letting yourself be a bit looser.

"But it comes from understanding all those fine details I've been struggling with sometimes, but also removing all the other factors, like me and Lewis running different packages [at Sepang]. Is there something there? Are there any other things that could affect it?

"This sport it is sensitive for the mental state of yourself as a driver. It maybe sounds funny but it's a very, very sensitive sport mentally and you need to be absolutely on it if you want to be the quickest."

And Bottas acknowledges he needs to find a way of improving his performance quickly to help Mercedes wrap up the constructors' championship.

"For sure it's difficult. Being honest maybe it's the most difficult time of my career, so far, in terms of how does it feel every time you go in the car. I just want to perform, I want to be at a good level and I haven't been doing that for some time, for many varied reasons. There are many, many questions marks for me and for the team, so I definitely have to turn it around very quickly.

"If I keep doing races like this, it won't be good for anyone. The team needs the points, I need the points, I want the points, I want to do much better than this. I want to turn it around quickly and I'm willing to do everything, whatever it's needed. Like I said, there are still many, many question marks.

"Driving one second off the pace, feeling that I want to fight for the race wins, if you're one second off the pace it's definitively stressful. I want to turn around, hopefully quickly."