Bottas "support-role" to be discussed after Monza

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has revealed that his team will discuss potential support-role for Valtteri Bottas, as the title race heats up between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.

Mercedes usually treat both drivers equally, but with Hamilton now only 17 points ahead of Vettel, and Ferrari's superior engine, it looks as if they may tell Bottas to take a step back from proceedings to benefit his team-mate.

Bottas is now 87 points behind his team-mate, with his title hopes, all but gone - following his P4 finish yesterday at Spa-Francorchamps.

Wolff was asked the question whether it was time to put the Finn in a support role, and the German replied: "I hate to do that. It's completely against my racing instinct.

"We try to be very neutral to both drivers. We haven't done it. We haven't done it yet. We haven't discussed it.

"Let's see how Monza pans out and how it goes. Then we will address the question as to whether we need to put all force behind one driver. But at the moment, we owe it to the two men and to Formula One to not interfere with the race," Wolff added to MotorsportWeek's website.

Bottas had a quite remarkable drive yesterday, starting the race in Belgium in 17th position and finishing in fourth, and Wolff was quick to praise that.

"It was a very good performance," Wolff said. "Obviously the wing didn't help at the beginning but you can see how difficult it is to overtake.

"There was a stage at lap 10 or so where it was difficult to find his way through the field against cars that were maybe two seconds offset in pace.

"But overall, I'm really happy when he put the other tyre on, which wasn't new, set the quickest lap time of the race at the end and finished in P4.

"I think this was maxium to be achieved without the Safety Car mid-race, which I'm happy with."