F1 Gossip: Bottas-Russell mid-season swap rumours are “nonsense” - Wolff

- Toto Wolff has refuted claims Valtteri Bottas’ future with the team is in doubt amid recent speculation.

Earlier this week, the Daily Mail reported that Mercedes are losing faith with the Finn after his stuttering start to the season. 

In an interview with Austrian publication Österreich, Wolff dismissed the rumours as “nonsense” and believes Bottas’ performance at Portimao, where he claimed pole position, shows he has the pace to remain with the team. 

In the same interview, Wolff also said: “Lewis Hamilton deserves to be champion because of his consistency.”

- Fernando Alonso believes criticism surrounding his form “is getting bigger than what it is”, blaming the media for over-exaggerating his struggles.

In an interview with RaceFans, Alonso said: “At the same time, I had one weekend where I was not totally comfortable in Imola and the problem that in Formula 1 there are a lot of media, a lot of articles and unfortunately two weeks between races, because if it was back to back from Imola to [Algarve], there would’ve been much less talk.”

The Spaniard also revealed Liberty Media’s changes to the sport since taking ownership have made the championship more attractive and thus led to his comeback.

- Ex-AlphaTauri driver Daniil Kvyat still wants to return to the sport after being dropped in favour of Yuki Tsunoda at the end of 2020. (Russian TV channel MatchTV)

- Haas team principal Guenther Steiner approves of Sebastian Vettel’s support towards Mick Schumacher, describing it as ‘cool’ and ‘correct’. (RTL)

- Two-time F1 champion Mika Hakkinen says Max Verstappen needs to stop making small mistakes if he is to topple Hamilton this season.

In his Unibet column, Haikkinen wrote: “One area of frustration for Max has been track limit penalties. He should have won in Bahrain and could have taken pole position and set the fastest lap in Portugal. 

“But each time he put all four wheels over the line at some point on the circuit. It is so easy to do, but you cannot afford to make small mistakes like that.  To beat Lewis, Max needs to do a perfect job each weekend.”

- Former Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul has now been appointed as a motorsport advisor to the engineering company Mecachrome. 

Mecachrome is manufacturing a number of significant parts for the Renault power unit that Alpine uses in F1.