Bottas pitches himself to Red Bull Racing – Valtteri Bottas is a winner of ten Formula One Grand Prix and has racked up a further sixty seven podiums during his F1 career. His move to Sauber from Mercedes was supposed to extend the career of the 36 year old Finn through the team’s metamorphosis into the Audi F1 team.
Yet Sauber made an unusual decision come the end of the 2024 season in sacking both of their drivers who were replaced by rookie Oliver Bearman and experienced ‘old hand’ Nico Hulkenberg. The latter is known for his lightening one lap pace but after nine rounds this year, the German driver is barely ahead of the rookie Englishman: 5-4 in qualifying and 6-3 for races finished ahead of teammate Bearman.
Hulkenberg has the dubious record for being the driver in F1 history with the most race starts (236) but is yet without a podium finish. Looking for an experienced driver along with a novice, Nico pipped Valtteri Bottas to the Sauber seat this year, leaving the Finn with no options to join the 2025 F1 grid.
Bottas may race in Canadian GP
Bottas returned to Mercedes as their reserve driver this season and may yet be called up to compete for a Mercedes’ customer next time out in Canada. Aston Martin made the shock announcement after qualifying in Spain, that once Stroll had withdrawn form the Grand Prix due to a recurrence of a cycling injury from 2023 where he broke both his wrists.
The Canadian underwent surgery in Barcelona I Saturday night, but their are doubts as to whether he will be fit enough to drive for Aston come his home race weekend in Montreal which starts in just eight days. The team’s reserve drivers are committed to drive the same weekend in the World Endurance Championship blue ribbon event, the 24 hours of Le Mans, and as yet neither of their entries have been withdrawn.
Bottas is a ready made replacement from Lance Stroll in Montreal and the benefit of engaging the Finn while the Canadian is unfit to drive would provide the team with some bench mark data on how Lance stacks up against team mate Fernando Alonso. Its already obvious that the intra team competition at Aston Martin is very one sided and with Bottas alongside the double world champion, the Silverstone based team may have a glimpse of what is possible in their second car.
There are rumours swirling in the F1 paddock, that Lance Stroll is set to quit F1 in spectacular fashion. This will give Aston Martin a conundrum, do they recruit experience like Bottas or go for youth in their 2023 F2 champion, Felipe Drugovich?
Bottas pitches himself to Red Bull
Yet beyond this year Bottas has been trailing on his #social media campaign, “#WhatsNext?” Now the Finn opens up on what the future in racing may look like, admitting he may have to leave his home in Europe and move to the USA. However, theres one more hope for Bottas in the form of new entrants for 2026, Cadillac. The team run by the Andretti organisation have said are looking for at least one experienced F1 driver to join their ranks.
A weekend in an Aston Martin might add weight to Bottas’ claim for a Cadillac drive, something he opened up over on this weeks “Beyond the flag” podcast. But first Valtteri admitted he had pitched himself to Red Bull Racing as a driver of experience who can handle the second seat alongside Max Verstappen.
“I don’t know if they look outside their academy. They have so many drivers, they’ve got their junior team as well. It’s a tough one because it seems like it’s not an easy car to drive. Obviously Max is doing the job. He’s really pushing almost beyond the limits of the car. And whoever has been alongside him hasn’t looked great,” said the Finn.
“But I don’t know. I just wonder if that car, to be driven fast, needs a driver with experience. That’s my speculation, but I think they know that I’m keen to race. They know that I would be available for next year. But I don’t know their mindset on that,” Bottas concluded on the matter.
On the shortlist for F1 Cadillac
Valtteri was an outside candidate to replace Sergio Perez at the end of 2024, and he revealed at the time,“there’s certain persons, or a person, within the Red Bull organisation that for some reason is not a big fan of mine.” This presumably refers to Valtteri’s role in the incident packed titanic struggle for the 2021 drivers’ title between Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Red Bull’s second seat troubles aside, Bottas best hope for an F1 return is with Cadillac in 2026 but he’s in competition with Sergio Perez, ex-Sauber team mate Zhou Guanyu along with Mick Schumacher. Va;ltteri is now targeting the Sumer break for any future in F1 to be resolved otherwise he is likely to head across the pond to race in the Indycar series.
“August more or less is a pretty good target” said Bottas in terms of any F1 interest in him for next year. He also revealed that Cadillac F1 is a “very interesting project. If I would be there as a driver, it would be actually very interesting because you can start from scratch, the team starts from zero and you could actually make a big influence on certain things, which direction to go,” said Bottas. “That would be very motivating and rewarding when the success comes.”
One other possibility would be for Valtteri to drive for the F1 Alpin e team, who currently are struggling with a second driver. Jack Doohan was sacked by the French owned team after six race weekends and now Franco Colapinto, his replacement, is not delivering. Team boss Flavio Briatore has warned the young Argentinian, his previous glories for Williams stand for nothing and it is results at Alpine which are all the Italian cares about.
Tsunoda at risk of Red Bull chop admits Horner
Alpine have warned Colapinto
Briatore has been tasked with making Alpine a front running F1 team and to that end he even sacked Jack Doohan who is under the Italian’s management stable. Unlike with Red Bull where Dr. Marko is persistently talking up his junior drivers, Briatore for Alpine will recruit whoever can deliver the best results.
Bottas confirms there have been conversations with the Grove based F1 team and that Briatore is open to recruiting a more experienced driver in favour of Franco Colapinto. “They do have a Mercedes power unit for the future, which I think is a good call,” said Bottas.
“They’re on the second driver this year and I think the next races will show how that goes again. Experience can always help but there’s lots of politics in this sport. I don’t have tens of millions to pay for a seat for example.” That’s something Franco Colapinto has in bucket loads.
Indycar offers for Valtteri
“It depends on the team, but I do have some personal partners that could potentially join me but not to the extent to some others. Let’s wait and see if you race to see how things go. You never know if something opens up.”
Should Bottas not find and F1 driver he will almost certainly leave for north America next season where he received an Indycar offer for this year. “Ovals, I’ve never tried them, but I’ve got no concerns,” said Bottas. “If it’s not Formula 1 next year for me, I definitely need to figure out what is the plan B, and one option definitely is IndyCar.
“And if that would be the case I would want to commit to many years because I know it’s not going to be easy. It’s a different category, different cars, different tracks. But let’s not talk about it too much yet, try to stay within F1,” concluded the Finn.
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