Team principal Frank Williams praised Bottas's record in the junior categories and expressed his hope that the role would "provide him with another step in his development".

[25] At the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Bottas started fifteenth due to a gearbox change penalty[26] and clipped the wall causing a tyre puncture in the race, but recovered to sixth at the finish and was later promoted to fifth after Daniel Ricciardo's disqualification.

[29] Despite starting 14th at the British Grand Prix, Bottas made overtakes and benefited from Nico Rosberg's retirement to take another podium finish in second place.

[31] He was in second place on the opening lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix, but lost positions due to unfortunate safety car timing and a slow pit stop.

[53] His best qualifying position of the season thus far came at the Belgian Grand Prix where he started third, but he was handed a drive-through penalty when his team erroneously fitted his car with two different tyre compounds during a pit stop.

He was judged to have caused a lap-one collision with Lewis Hamilton at the Bahrain Grand Prix and received a drive-through penalty; he started sixth and finished ninth.

Bottas finished the season eighth in the World Drivers' Championship, scoring 85 points to Massa's 53 and qualifying ahead of his teammate at seventeen of the twenty-one races.

[70] Following reigning champion Nico Rosberg's shock retirement from the sport, Mercedes announced in January 2017 that they had signed Bottas to partner Lewis Hamilton at the team.

[81] Having started the British Grand Prix ninth following a grid penalty for a new gearbox, he made his way into third place and was promoted to second behind Hamilton after a late-race tyre failure for Räikkönen's Ferrari.

[86] He finished off the podium for the next three races while Hamilton claimed two wins and a second place, but his performances helped Mercedes clinch their fourth consecutive Constructors' Championship at the United States Grand Prix.

[97] He again qualified third ahead of Hamilton at the Chinese Grand Prix and overtook both Ferraris to lead the race, but was ultimately passed by Daniel Ricciardo, who used a safety car period to pit for fresh tyres.

[111] He finished second behind Hamilton at the Bahrain Grand Prix after race leader Charles Leclerc slowed with engine issues and dropped behind the Mercedes drivers.

[135][136] Before the Styrian Grand Prix, it was revealed that Bottas was under FIA investigation for potentially breaching COVID-19 safety protocols after he returned home to Monaco, but was eventually cleared of wrongdoing.

[140] Bottas secured pole position at the following week's 70th Anniversary Grand Prix but dropped behind Hamilton in the race, and tyre issues for the Mercedes cars allowed Max Verstappen to pass both drivers to win.

He claimed pole position at the latter, but took damage from debris in the early laps and fell to third before regaining second place when Verstappen retired with a tyre failure.

The rain continued during the race and Bottas spun six times after damaging his front wing due to contact with the Renault of Esteban Ocon, finishing a lap behind race-winner Hamilton in 14th place.

[156] Bottas ended the year second in the World Drivers' Championship with 223 points to Hamilton's 347, recording two wins, five pole positions, eleven podiums, and two fastest laps.

[164] At the Portuguese Grand Prix, Bottas qualified on pole position but was passed by Hamilton and Verstappen, and a sensor issue later in the race ended his pursuit of second place.

[170] Bottas qualified third at the French Grand Prix, but lost the podium position to Sergio Pérez in the latter stages of the race and criticised the team's one-stop strategy after being left out on old tyres.

He qualified second for the Hungarian Grand Prix but triggered a first-corner crash that eliminated multiple drivers from the race, for which he received a grid penalty.

Power unit component changes meant he started the race from the back of the grid,[175] but he recovered to fourth place and was promoted to the podium after Pérez received a penalty.

He was later brought into the pits multiple times for soft tyres in order to deny Max Verstappen the bonus point for the fastest lap, which was successful.

He reflected on his time at Mercedes, stating "I want to be able to say that I squeezed every drop out of this opportunity and left nothing on the table" and remarking that it had been a "privilege and a great sporting challenge" to work with Hamilton.

[207][208] He experienced three consecutive retirements at the Hungarian, Belgian and Dutch Grands Prix,[209][210][211] after which he identified reliability as an area of weakness for the C42 and commented that rival teams had out-developed Alfa Romeo.

The car began showing some signs of performance in the last few races of the season, with the team eyeing points at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, but those hopes were shot down when Bottas received a 5-place grid penalty for exceeding his power unit allotment.

[251] Bottas managed another Q3 appearance at the season finale in Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but had a first lap collision with Sergio Perez, earning himself a 10-second penalty, which effectively ended his chance for a top-10 finish.

[252] Overall, Bottas failed to score points for the first time in his Formula One career and finished twenty-second in the standings, ahead of Logan Sargeant and Jack Doohan on countback.

[266] Representing Finland in the Nations Cup tournament, Bottas and Häkkinen were knocked out by the Team eROC pair of Jarno Opmeer and Lucas Blakeley, having drawn 2–2 in the races but losing on a countback of total lap times.

[278][279] In May 2022, in collaboration with German photographer Paul Ripke, more than 5,000 print copies were sold of a photo taken by Cromwell of Bottas naked in an Aspen, Colorado stream, raising more than €50,000 for charity.

2010  E. Gutiérrez 2011  V. Bottas 2012  M. Evans 2013  D. Kvyat 2014  A. Lynn 2015  E. Ocon 2016  C. Leclerc 2017  G. Russell 2018  A. Hubert 2019  R. Shwartzman 2020  O. Piastri 2021  D. Hauger 2022  V. Martins 2023  G. Bortoleto 2024  L. Fornaroli 1991  J. Plato 1992  P. de la Rosa 1993  O. Couvreur 1994  J. Matthews 1995  C. Sauvage 1996  E. Bernoldi 1997  J. van Hooydonk 1998  B. Besson 1999  G. Bruni 2000  F. Massa 2001  A. Farfus 2002  E. Salignon 2003  E. Guerrieri 2004  S. Speed 2005  K. Kobayashi 2006  F. Albuquerque 2007  B. Hartley 2008  V. Bottas 2009  A. Costa 2010  K. Korjus 2011  R. Frijns 2012  S. Vandoorne 2013  P. Gasly 2014  N. de Vries 2015  J. Aitken 2016  L. Norris 2017  S. Fenestraz 2018  M. Fewtrell 2019  O. Piastri 2020  V. Martins