Bottas: Both me and Lewis are here to fight

In doing so he has broken the comfort zone of Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton who had no answer to his teammate on race day, his cause exacerbated by damage to his car.

Whatever the case, he now has to respond to a 'hostile' teammate for the first time since 2016, setting the stage for an internal battle for supremacy which the driver of car #77 intends winning.

He made it clear during his slow-down lap that he relished shutting up his detractors. The Bottas 2.0 we saw at Albert Park is going to be interesting to watch. An unexpected development early on in a season packed with sideshows.

Last year Bottas was winless, having to cede sure victory to his teammate in Russia, an afternoon which earned him the 'wingman' badge which he so dreads.

Speaking after his finest hour in Melbourne, Bottas told reporters, "We are all starting a new season with zero points, we are here to fight, both me and Lewis will want to fight this season, for sure, against each other and against everyone and we are still one team so no point in thinking about those kinds of things."

"Porridge" was the answer the Finn gave when asked what he had for breakfast on Sunday, but for sure it was more than what his chef whips up for him when he wakes up that has resulted in the new look Bottas.

He explained, "Every year you learn as a person, you learn about yourself, what works for you, what doesn’t work for you in terms of preparation and what preparation includes: how you rest, how you spend your free time, how you do the training, how much training, what kind, all those kind of things, travel plans, all sorts."

"So just trying to optimise everything for this year, try to maximise every single thing that is possible. I don’t know, it’s quite difficult to explain what’s been going on here last winter, inside of my head and definitely something changed in terms of the way I feel about things in life in general and in racing, but that’s all in my thoughts. I felt good in the car. That’s all that matters."

With Mercedes threatening to dominate once again this season, F1 needs Bottas to keep his form and raise it when required as at the end of the day we might only have that battle for the world title as Ferrari went AWOL and Red Bull are almost there, but not quite.

Furthermore, Mercedes probably (or typically?) will have more in reserve for their lads increasing the chance of it being a two-driver race between their lads as opposed to the Hamilton walkover of last year.

According to latest odds from SBD, "Hamilton is still the favorite to win the Bahrain GP with odds set at +160 while number two goes to Bottas (+200)."

"Bottas showed that he was a strong competitor in Australia where he was faster than Hamilton from turn one on so it's a good argument that Bottas is still being undervalued."