Valtteri Bottas rues ‘not fair’ F1 after ‘unlucky’ contract situation uncovered

Oliver Harden
The F1 field at the start of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

McLaren driver Lando Norris leads at the start of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Valtteri Bottas says Formula 1 is inherently “not fair” amid Sauber backing out of a deal to extend his contract for the F1 2025 season.

Bottas was left without a seat for F1 2025 after Sauber opted to sign F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto as Nico Hulkenberg’s team-mate for the new season instead.

Valtteri Bottas: F1 is ‘not fair’

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock and Michelle Foster

The capture of Bortoleto, the Brazilian youngster managed by current Aston Martin racer Fernando Alonso, saw Bottas’s last remaining hope of remaining on the grid disappear.

Bottas’s Sauber exit came after he had spoken optimistically about retaining his seat for F1 2025, with reports over the Singapore Grand Prix weekend in September claiming he had signed a one-year contract extension.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at the United States Grand Prix on October 17, meanwhile, Bottas confirmed that he had agreed terms on a new deal and was just waiting for the “green light” from Sauber.

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It emerged on Monday that Bottas was so confident of staying on the grid that he physically put pen to paper on a contract for the F1 2025 season.

However, a signature from the Sauber side never came as the team confirmed the signing of Bortoleto on November 6, three days after the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos.

Bottas has since returned to Mercedes, with whom he claimed 10 wins between 2017 and 2021, as the team’s reserve driver for F1 2025.

A report by Swiss-German publication Blick, which is known to have close links to Sauber, claimed at the time that Bottas was ‘causing problems’ during negotiations as he was said to have been pushing for ?‘a better contract with more money.’

Bottas, who is understood to have been in talks with Williams before the team opted for Carlos Sainz, has argued there was “nothing more” he could have done to convince Sauber to keep him for F1 2025, acknowledging that he was caught in an “unlucky situation.”

And the 35-year-old has claimed that F1 is inherently unfair, with a number of factors behind the signings of certain drivers.

He told Motorsport Monday: “I know that in any case this sport is not fair. In the end, it’s big business.

“There’s many factors on driver decisions, so I understand it.

“It doesn’t really made me mad or anything. It can happen. I think in the end I just ended up in a little bit [of an] unlucky situation for my career.

“I [heard about the signing of Bortoleto a] couple of days leading up to the decision. I started to hear some rumours and stuff.

“But I knew when the final board meeting was and how it was going to be and the decision was made.

“It’s very obvious there was nothing more I could have done for it, so I take it.

“It’s a bit unlucky how it just panned out and things were dragging on. And then I was left in a situation that here was the only option in the end.

“Then that didn’t work out, so I knew that’s it for now.

“I think I’ll just call it unlucky. I think we tried everything we could with management, but things just went in an unlucky way.”

Bottas publicly stated throughout negotiations with Sauber that he was not prepared to settle for a one-year contract ahead of the team’s highly anticipated Audi F1 transition for the sport’s new era in 2026.

The Finn sees a long road ahead for the Audi F1 team from next year, claiming that it will “definitely” require more than two years for the Swiss-based team to emerge as a major force.

He added: “I always knew that it’s not going to be easy for Audi.

“It will take time, but how long? That’s the big question mark.

“I was always committed for a long-term project even though I knew it would be difficult.

“That’s why I always made it very clear that I wouldn’t be ready to do one year only, because I knew that it will definitely take time, more than a year or two.”

More on Valtteri Bottas and Sauber

? Valtteri Bottas news

? Sauber news

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after the signing of Bortoleto was confirmed last November, Sauber chief Mattia Binotto admitted that it had been a tough decision to overlook Bottas for F1 2025.

He said: “First I am getting on well, very, very well with Valtteri.

“It has been since I’ve started here in August, a great relationship, building it, trusting each others, and I think we really set up good communication between us.

“We had several talks about the journey, the length, duration of the journey, the difficulties we may be facing the next season. We know that the next one will be a difficult season as a team, as a journey to towards the Audi F1 transformation.

“It’s a long, long journey and I think that’s mainly on the duration where we reflect together a lot, and it’s when we came and I came to the conclusion that maybe we need to have a young driver with us.

“So it has been really a mutual understanding, if not agreement. Certainly a mutual understanding of the situation, the facts of what’s required.

“More than that, I’d like you to underline is I think he has been certainly a very strong candidate.

“I know he’s very fast. I know that he has proven to be very fast, still to be very fit, he knows the team, and certainly here he is very highly rated, and he’s very highly rated in the paddock.

“So overall, it has not been an easy one, but sometimes you need to come to a conclusion and make a decision and lead.”

Read next:?Lewis Hamilton reunites with Angela Cullen at Ferrari with secret location uncovered

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