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After working as an understudy to Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna in 2012, Valtteri Bottas will race for Williams in 2013. Highly respected within the team, expectations are high for his debut year after he showed promise during his 15 Friday morning practice sessions in 2012.

He made an immediate mark in his early career when, in 2007 at the age of 17, he won two Formula Renault races, and the following year he won both the Formula Renault Eurocup and the Formula Renault Northern European Cup.

In 2009 he moved up to the Formula 3 Euroseries, finishing third in the championship. Although he did not win a race during that series, he did win the Masters of Formula 3 event, setting the fastest lap and taking pole in the process. He repeated his victory in 2010 by which time he had been signed by Williams as a test driver.

In 2011 he switched to GP3 and, driving for Lotus ART, he made an indifferent start before wins on each of the last four weekends secured him the title. That was enough to gain him a reserve driver seat with Williams.

With in-season testing banned, Bottas was given plenty of mileage in the 2012 Williams by taking part in 15 FP1 sessions in Senna's car. He is therefore one of the better prepared rookies on the 2013 grid and is hoping to turn that into points over the course of the year.

"As a team I think we should be aiming to score more points than this year and really get the most out of the car," he said after signing. "Personally I hope to look back and feel that I have learnt a lot and developed as a driver over the course of the season, having scored a lot of points for the team."

Strengths and Weaknesses
Like the Finns that have gone before him in F1, he is a cool character who takes his racing seriously and has shown dedication to reach to the top level. Weaknesses are few and far between but ahead of the step up to F1 he did not compete in a junior series meaning his race craft could be a bit rusty.

Career High
Dominating the GP3 Series in 2011 marked him out as a star of the future.

Career Low
Crashing out of the F3 Macau Grand Prix in 2011 while in contention for victory. It proved to be his last attempt to win the prestigious race after missing out in 2009 and 2010 as well.

Quotes
"Once I get to drive more, with mileage and experience, then I can do some good things."

"Physics still exists, if you have lighter car with less fuel it goes a bit quicker!" - Bottas on why his Williams wasn't at the top of the timesheets at his first test in 2013.

Trivia
Bottas is something of a sensation on the micro-blogging website Twitter with #BOTTAS trending on numerous occasions. The origins of the capped-up hashtag appear to be linked to an Autosport magazine headline that simply read "BOTTAS" across two pages.