Bottas will have 'no worries' over Mercedes deal if he achieves targets

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas

Valtteri Bottas believes he will have "no worries" about earning a new Mercedes contract if he achieves his objectives this season.

Sebastian Vettel has been linked with a Silver Arrows seat after it was announced he will be leaving Ferrari at the end of this year.

Bottas this week revealed he has been assured by his team that they will not be signing Vettel for 2021.

Both Bottas and Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton are in the final year of their contract as they prepare for the new season to finally start in Austria next month.

The Finnish driver is optimistic he will extend his stay with the dominant force in the sport provided he lives up to expectations.

"I have that one single target in my mind for the season and that's it, take all the other things away," he was quoted as saying on the F1 website.

"If I can follow all those targets, performance targets, and if our team can perform well, there's going to be no worries about any contract."

F1 bosses are still hopeful of a 15-18 race season after the events in Azerbaijan, Singapore and Japan were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic on Friday.

This year won't be the same without Baku, Marina Bay and Suzuka

— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) June 12, 2020

Bottas knows there will no margin for error when he goes in search of a maiden world title.

"Minimising every mistake and maximising every single race weekend is going to be the key, because every mistake is going to cost more than in a normal championship with more than 20 races," he said.

"It's an interesting season ahead. There's a bit of an unknown after the first eight races, how the calendar is going to be, so we just need to take that week by week, month by month and we'll see."