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The key to Valtteri Bottas’ F1 future is probably to be found at McLaren rather than Sauber.
What do I mean by that? Sauber-Audi is Bottas’s last option of staying in F1. He’s been ready to renew with the team ever since Audi’s unexpected dropping of Andreas Seidl as team principal in favour of former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto.
Bottas and Seidl seemed to have run out of faith in each other. But Binotto represented a clean slate, or so it seemed.
Yet despite Bottas’ hope of re-signing it’s dragged on for week after week. Informed intelligence suggests Binotto is holding Bottas at bay as his safe fallback option while trying to recruit current F2 championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto, currently under contract to McLaren.
While McLaren is said to be prepared to not stand in Bortoleto’s way if an F1 chance came up elsewhere, the driver himself may be reluctant to give up on the possibility of a McLaren opportunity later in favour of a Sauber opportunity sooner.
Especially if he is hearing Helmut Marko talking about the idea of Oscar Piastri joining Red Bull. If there is anything in that, why hitch your wagon so early to a team which has years of toil ahead of it before it’s likely to be a frontrunner?
So Bottas may yet find himself with an extension to his long F1 career. But if not, the idea of a non-F1 racing role at Mercedes has a certain logic. His relationship with team boss Toto Wolff remains strong and he's admitted it's an option for 2025.
"Firstly the priority is to stay as a race driver, that's what I want," Bottas said on Thursday in Mexico.
"That's what we're pushing for with Mattia. But of course, as I don't have anything signed and we're in October, I've got to look at all the alternatives, including going back to the Mercedes family, that's for sure one option. And I'd consider it. But there are other options as well, my priority is to be a race driver in F1."
But what might that lead to? A future Mercedes Le Mans project perhaps?
