Wolff: Trailing Bottas still not 'no.2'

May 19 - Toto Wolff says Mercedes remains committed to not designating Valtteri Bottas the 'number 2' driver for 2017.

A mere 6 points separates Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and top Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton so far this year.

But when asked about the much bigger points gap - 35 points - between teammates Hamilton and Bottas, team boss Wolff sounded reluctant about adopting a clear team hierarchy in the interests of securing the drivers' title.

"Yes, the gap is quite big now after the Spanish grand prix," he is quoted by Speed Week.

"But we have just five races behind us and fifteen still ahead. So there is no reason for us to favour a driver and certainly not at such an early stage of the season.

"No, we will continue as before," said Wolff.

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Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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