Valtteri Bottas will depart Sauber after the 2024 System 1 season however is known to already be near signing again with Mercedes as its reserve driver from subsequent yr.
In what has been an terrible yr for Sauber – nonetheless 2024’s solely point-less workforce – Bottas’s place past the deal he struck when leaving Mercedes on the finish of the 2021 season, when Sauber was branded as Alfa Romeo, was threatened as plans for Audi’s 2026 arrival accelerated.
First, Sauber employed Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg in a deal overlaying the 2025 season forward of the Audi rebrand for the next yr, with Bottas’s team-mate Zhou Guanyu not in rivalry to maintain the only real remaining racing seat with the workforce.
Sauber then entered a turbulent interval of administration change, with earlier bosses – former CEO Andrea Seidl and chairman Oliver Hoffmann – axed and ex-Ferrari workforce boss Mattia Binotto employed as chief working and chief technical officer. Crimson Bull sporting director Johnathan Wheatley additionally joined to be Sauber workforce principal from 2025.
In Brazil final weekend Bottas stated doing a brand new take care of Sauber was nonetheless “what I am pushing for with Mattia”.
However over the Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend Autosport/Motorsport.com reported that System 2 championship chief Gabriel Bortoleto has agreed a deal to race for the Swiss workforce for subsequent yr after it missed out on signing Williams-bound Carlos Sainz, its long-held goal.
Valtteri Bottas, Stake F1 Crew KICK Sauber C44
Photograph by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Pictures
Sauber’s determination means Bottas’s present F1 racing profession will seemingly be capped at 10 wins from 246 races, come the top of the present marketing campaign in Abu Dhabi subsequent month.
However he might but see extra motion together with his former workforce, after saying returning to what he referred to as the “Mercedes household” at Interlagos was “for certain one choice and I might take into account it”.
Autosport understands that discussions between Mercedes and Bottas have been occurring for a number of weeks, with the squad set to discipline a workforce made up of drivers it has supported all the way in which to F1 – George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli – in 2025.
Though the trail again to the full-time racing driver from a reserve position is troublesome, F1 has had a surge in super-sub appearances lately.
This was turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Hulkenberg, particularly, gaining a sequence of sudden appearances for what’s now Aston Martin after leaving Renault at 2019’s finish.
Damage replacements have been required elsewhere and this yr Williams axed Logan Sargeant nicely earlier than the top of the present marketing campaign, though opted to interchange him with its junior driver, Franco Colapinto.
However Hulkenberg’s story is one significantly related to Bottas, because it was his common place within the F1 paddock as Aston’s reserve that helped him keep in common contact with then Haas workforce principal Guenther Steiner and ultimately to a deal to rejoin the grid as a full-time racer with the American squad in 2023.
It’s not presently recognized when any deal for Bottas to return to Mercedes is likely to be introduced, however Sauber is predicted to be confirming the deal for Bortoleto – presently a McLaren junior – this week.