Valtteri Bottas had signed a contract with Sauber for 2025

The team based in Hinwil, preparing for Audi’s arrival in 2026, has completely renewed its drivers this season. Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou had to leave the team to make way for Nico Hülkenberg, former Haas driver, and the Formula 2 world champion, the Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto. While the Finn has found refuge with his former team Mercedes, his disappointment remains immense, especially since he had already signed a contract for the 2025 season.

Sauber had initially chosen Bottas for the 2025 season.

In any case, these are the remarks reported by the Swiss daily newspaper *Blick*, always well-informed about the Sauber team. Indeed, during the weekend in Singapore, a team principal had spread the news of a contract extension for the Finnish driver. Even though it had yet to be made official, optimism was the order of the day for Valtteri Bottas, who wanted to take advantage of the four weeks following the Marina Bay round to obtain confirmation from his team. “There is a good amount of time between this race and the next to continue discussions, and then we’ll see what happens,” stated the driver with 10 F1 victories.

Gabriel Bortoleto finally chosen

However, just as the agreement seemed close to being finalized, Sauber changed its mind and decided to assign the second seat for 2025 to Gabriel Bortoleto, a Formula 2 driver. A difficult decision to make according to Mattia Binotto, the new team leader. Since my arrival in August, I have built an excellent relationship with Valtteri, based on trust and good communication. We have discussed a lot about the future, upcoming challenges, and the transition to Audi F1. The Finn had even physically signed his contract extension. However, Sauber has never hidden its intention to recruit a young driver to support the very experienced Nico Hülkenberg, who was recruited at the start of the season from Haas.

« We came to the conclusion that we needed to integrate a young talent. It was a decision based on a mutual understanding of the situation. Valtteri remains a fast, fit, and highly regarded driver in the paddock. But sometimes, you have to make decisions and move forward », said the former Ferrari boss during a press conference in remarks reported by PlanetF1.

A transfer to Sauber he regrets.

If the Finn is disappointed not to continue his adventure in F1, his main regret is having made the decision to join Sauber in 2022 after being dismissed from Mercedes the previous year. According to him, joining Sauber was a big mistake. « If I could go back three years, I would have gone elsewhere. It was a big mistake, but it’s hard to predict these things. The first year with [Frédéric] Vasseur was promising, but after his departure, all our goals were abandoned. Since then, it has been much more difficult. »

Now a third driver at Mercedes, a team with which he won ten races between 2017 and 2021, the former Williams driver will have the task of doing a lot of simulator work but also of advising the young driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli before, perhaps, a return to F1 in 2026.