Valtteri Bottas be🎃lieves his race pace, not qualifying, was the area he imp🌸roved on the most throughout the 2020 Formula 1 season.

For the second season in succession, Bottas fi🌠nished runner-up to Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, ending the year 124 ♔points down on the seven-time world champion in the final standings.

Bottas managed just two victories across the 17-round campaign, in contrast to Hamilton’s 10 w🐠ins from the 16 races he♎ contested. The Finn scored five pole positions and came extremely close to out qualifying Hamilton on a number of occasions throughout 2020.

Despite seemingly enjoying stronger performances on Saturdaওys across the season, Bottas feels he made his biggest gains on race days.

“It was extremely close many, many times this year and even i🌱n the top three🅠 as well,” Bottas said. “We had good qualifying battles with Lewis.

“Obviously in the races more often, as the points show, he g♈ot the upper hand. But I can’t really say that qualifying was was the biggest thing that I improved.

“I would say actually the race pace overall t🌃his year was a little bit better. But ♏obviously there’s always more work to do.”

While Bottas acknowledged he ultimately failed to meet his targets in 2020,🙈 he remains optimistic he can plug the gap to Hamilton next season in his bid to claim a maiden world title.

“Of course I didn’t meet my tജargets for the year in terms o꧃f results,” he added.

“But still now looking at the big picture, there’s so many positive things and so many more lessons learnt about driving and about myself and everything that I can𒆙 again carry into next year and really turn that into into a strength and try again.”