Merce🐠des boss Toto Wolff says he never took it as a given that Williams would release Valtteri Bottas, joking deputy team principal Claire Williams made him "cry" and "beg" a lot to secure the Finn.

Bottas was finally con💮firmed as Nico Rosberg's replacement for F1 2017 on January 16, but Wolff said talks with Williams were anything but easy and that Rosberg's decision to retire certainly creat🧔ed a few headaches.

"It was a couple of difficult weekends and weeks and Claire is clearly Frank's daughter, tough in negotiations and it wasn't always so obvious for us that we would get Valtteri. Clearly we understood it would be a compromise for Claire to let him go," Wolff told .

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"But we found a solution that helps Willia♑ms to continue to devel🐻op its capability and resource and strengthen the team mid-term and long-term - and I think taking Felipe [Massa] back was a good move.

"Maybe it would have been more inspiring to keep Valtteri but I think long-term, even if I would had been in Claire's shoes, it 🅷was a good move. She made me cry a lot [though]꧟ - and made me beg of course!"

Meanwhile, Claire added while Bottas was a big part of the teams plans, she fe🌼lt it would be wrong to deny him the chance to move to Mercedes.

She alꦬso emphasised that there is no way they would have let hi🍒m go had the terms for Williams not have been good.

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"That would be telling!" she quipped, when asked how Mercedes persuaded her🅠 to release Bottas."Obviously losing your driver, and Valtteri - everyone knows we had a contract with him - was a key part of our team. We have clear ambitions and Valtteri was part of that.

"We would never have made th♊at🎀 decision to let him go unless the terms for us were particularly favourable and meant we came out of it in a strong position. We couldn't possibly allow someone, a key asset like that, to [just] leave us.

"I'd like to think I made Toto's life slightly uncomfortable for a good few weeks there and Valtteri's as well. Yes, we have lost Valtteri and that's a shame. But also it is not right to st🔜and in a driver's way when a seat like the Mer🏅cedes seat becomes available.

"Valtteri has very clear ambitions and we unfortunately can't provide him with a platform to achieve those ambitions at the moment. To stand in his way probably wouldn't have been the right thing. But I am not going to go into what Toto has given me in return for Valtte💙ri."

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