Lack of fizz: Bottas is now 36 points behind his Mercedes team-mate

Hamilton and Bottas started the season evenly matched. And after the Finn won the opening race of the season while Hamilton toiled a little behind him, there was much talk of a ‘Bottas 2.0’, a new man emerging, reinvigorated, after his travails in the second half of last year.

That always looked a little hopeful and premature, but Bottas did indeed have a strong start to the year. He and Hamilton shared two wins apiece in the first four races, after which Bottas actually led the championship by a point.

Since then, though, things have unravelled for him. A second place in Spain behind Hamilton, after taking pole, when Hamilton beat him off the line, was followed by an unlucky third in Monaco, which would have been second had he not suffered a puncture when Max Verstappen drove him into the pit wall at a stop.