Emergency F1 option emerges for Bottas: Possible return to Mercedes in 2025
F1 News
Valtteri Bottas is now looking for emergency options should a deal with Audi not materialise. Audi will take over the team, which is currently known as Sauber, in 2026. The Finnish driver confirmed one of those options is a return to Mercedes as the reserve driver for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
Bottas seemed to be the favourite for the seat at Audi for a long time. The Finn was confident about a 2025 seat at the start of the season, but it is starting to seem further and further away. Audi are debating whether to stick with experience, or go for a young option. Young drivers like Oliver Bearman, Franco Colapinto and Liam Lawson are performing well, which does not do Bottas' case any favours.
Gabriel Bortoleto, Theo Pourchaire, and Mick Schumacher are possible options to partner up with Nico Hulkenberg. Pourchaire is already in Sauber's training programme and is the team's reserve driver. With time running out and no other options on the grid for Bottas, he has started to look at emergency options.
How Bottas could make a shock return to Mercedes in 2025
Bottas admits one of the options is a return to Mercedes as a reserve driver. Currently, Mick Schumacher is the reserve at Mercedes. Bottas drove for the team alongside Lewis Hamilton between 2017 and 2021 inclusive.
"[My] firstly priority is to stay as a race driver. That's what I want and that's what we're pushing for with Mattia [Binotto]. But of course as I don't have anything signed, we are in October, I got to look at all the alternatives, including going back to the Mercedes family. That's for sure one option and I would consider it. But there's other options as well, as well as going back to my priority is to be a race driver," Bottas told F1TV.