This season, Valtteri Bottas has still not opened his points account, but it seems that the Finnish Sauber driver is philosophical about this.
Not being fast enough in the C44 doesn’t dampen his spirits too much, or perhaps Valtteri will manage to keep it going through various non-motorsport activities. For example, last weekend he took second place in a gravel cycling race in the US, and yesterday he remembered his hockey youth and took to the ice with the players of the legendary club Montreal Canadiens.
After training with them, Valtteri was photographed in the uniform of this club, where he is assigned the number 77, as in Formula 1. Moreover, this is a long-standing tradition: since 2017, upon arrival at the Grand Prix of Canada, Bottas has conducted demonstration training with the Montreal Canadiens players.
This time it was the same: the Sauber driver went to the ice palace of the CN Sport Complex, where he spoke to NHL players and presented them with the uniform of the Pelicans hockey club from the Finnish city of Lahti as a souvenir. A few years ago we talked about how Bottas became co-owner of this club.
According to the local press, these kinds of friendly gestures and communication with hockey stars attract the attention of the Canadian public, and it remains to be seen who will express their sympathy this weekend: Lance Stroll, born in Montreal, or Valtteri.
Suffice it to quote the comment of one of the fans under the photos on hockey themes that the Finn shared on social networks:
“I know Bottas has already been recognized as an honorary Australian, but perhaps he should also be made an honorary Canadian?”
However, Bottas is not the only one who finds time for hockey before the Canadian race weekend: Lance also trained with the Montreal Canadiens hockey players in 2019, because he loved this sport as a youth. And last year even Günter Steiner, then still in charge of the Haas F1 team, risked going on the ice, even though he was already 58 years old.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
