Valtteri Bottas says he will “most likely” be in Formula 1 next season despite not having announced a deal to remain on the grid beyond this year.
There are only two vacancies on the 2025 grid: one at Bottas’ Sauber team, the other at Red Bull’s second team RB, which is expected to go to either Daniel Ricciardo or Liam Lawson.Sauber has already announced Nico Hulkenberg will join them next season, one year before their formal transition into the Audi factory team from 2026. Should Bottas or younger team mate Zhou Guanyu not be signed by the team for next season, Sauber will have an all-new driver line up for 2025.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, said he is not spending a lot of time considering what options are available to him if he fails to be retained by Sauber next year.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to think about that too much now,” Bottas told the official F1 channel. “I think, for me, it’s very clear where I want to be and where I most likely will be, which is in Formula 1.”
However he is committed to racing somewhere next year. “If not Formula 1, I will definitely race. I’m a racer and I’ve been racing all my life and I couldn’t just quit racing.
“Plan B would be IndyCar – try and win the championship in ‘X amount’ of years. But, I don’t think that’s yet.”
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Bottas says he is in regular conversation with Audi’s F1 CEO Mattia Binotto about the team’s future plans and admitted that negotiating a potential contract extension takes some focus away from his race weekend.
“Just the race weekend alone is quite a lot of load on you – mentally and physically,” he said. “And yes, there’s always the contract situation, which is an extra stress, let’s say.
“But things are progressing. We’re still almost in daily contact with Mattia, figuring out what each party wants. That’s about it. I’m always positive, but now again, it’s time to focus on the weekend rather than the contract.”
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Jere (@jerejj)
12th September 2024, 16:14
I’m not as confident as him & haven’t been for a little while anymore, so declaring ”most likely” is somewhat brave, but maybe he knows something we don’t.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
12th September 2024, 18:27
I hope he stays. The Sauber car’s been pretty hopeless of late, and Audi coming in with a brand new and unproven engine they’re going to need experience more than anything – a Bottas/Hulkenberg lineup would be pretty dependable. I am saddened he’s in this position – I had hoped he’d go back to Williams. He’s always been a pretty good racer and a decent qualifier with the equipment to do so, and I think one of the stronger midfield drivers on the grid that can fight at the front if the car allows.
MichaelN
12th September 2024, 20:24
Has he? It’s hard to tell in a car as bad as he has now, but back when he was at Mercedes he never really seemed to improve his mediocre tyre management skills. Even in races where he had the pace to follow Hamilton around in 2nd (which arguably wasn’t often enough) he still always dropped back significantly in the latter half of the race. I also don’t recall Bottas being a particularly threatening presence at the front of the grid, but I’ll be the first to admit those latter Mercedes years are a bit of a blur.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
13th September 2024, 8:30
Not so good at Mercedes, but he was very good at defending when he was at Williams. Several races in 2015 and 2016 he managed to fend off the faster ferraris with them constantly getting close to overtaking him. He seemed to get worse when at Mercedes in this aspect. However he’s actually looked pretty good again for the ability of his car this season and has arguably the biggest performance gap between team mates this season aside from Verstappen and perez.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
13th September 2024, 9:25
I’d say his racecraft looked pretty weak at mercedes, but he still had good qualifying pace and given the trend we’re seeing, where a lot of drivers do well in the midfield and then they can’t prove themselves in a top car, I think out of those who got the opportunity to go to a top team, bottas still performed best out of non-top drivers when given the chance in a top car, better than perez overall, who did ofc better than albon and gasly in terms of best red bull season.
All in all pretty deserving of a place on the grid imo.
Miane
12th September 2024, 19:09
A pair of old and average drivers… It would be a pretty mediocre start for Audi…
MacLeod (@macleod)
13th September 2024, 7:52
If you start from scratch then this is very good. Both are decent fast Qualifliers and decent in Races. Engineers can develop a car much better with 2 constant drivers…
IF I was the CEO of Audi I would start with the design for 2026 and use 2025 to try parts. Audi doesn’t have the same restrictions as the rest of F1 as they are not in F1 ….yet.
They even can tryout their designs on test tracks …
isthatglock21
12th September 2024, 19:55
Time for some fresh blood. This bloke got divorced and suddenly developed a personality to feed into the viral social media pit that F1 has become with DTS. Don’t blame him, he knows sadly some people care more about that than they do racing. Bottas has bene awful for years, especially his sunday race pace, it’s horrific! Espeiclaly for a driver of his experience spanning over a decade! He”s lucky he’s got Zhou in the other car who wasn’t even top 10 drivers most would’ve picked from his F2 years.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
13th September 2024, 8:35
Bottas just hasn’t been “awful”. He vertually never crashes in the race (far less than any driver in the past decade) and he has finished ahead of better cars a fair number of times this year. He also had the worst luck of any driver last year in terms of recieving damage from debris / contact from other cars which made him look worse than he was.
He is certainly a decent driver and looked better than Hulkenberg when both in similar machinery. Even this season he’s managed to beat Hulkenberg a few times in a far worse car.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
13th September 2024, 9:28
He was also pretty unlucky in the mercedes years, would have a few more wins otherwise.
Dusty
12th September 2024, 22:20
I thought trying different smaller series like Indy or FE would be more fun for a driver than competing in the midfield/back after the stint in a big team and without aspirations to compete for wins/title again.
Bottas has had his time in F1, won WCCs, beat Hamilton in qualis and races in the same car a few times. It’s not like he has a realistic chance to add more to his F1 career. So much more to do outside of F1. Hope he enjoys whatever he chooses (or is available to him)
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
13th September 2024, 9:36
This is a good point, for drivers like bottas, hulkenberg, magnussen, who either never got a chance to go to a top team or will not realistically get a way back it could get boring to just drive around for minor point chances when they could be winners\champions in other series, maybe hulkenberg can still chase that podium, but also unlikely with so many top teams.