Silly season underway
Among the most active teams on the driver market in this one intricate and fascinating silly season towards the definition of the line-ups for the 2025 season, the Sauber. The Swiss team, which will become the official Audi team in 2026, has already formalized the hiring of German veteran Nico Hulkenberg from Haas for next year. The arrival of the Emmerich native, however, may not be the only one.
Indeed, it is no mystery that the goal of the Ingolstadt house is to try to sign Carlos Sainz, the next luxury free agent when his contract with Ferrari expires, which was not renewed to make room for the advent of Lewis Hamilton. However, Sauber currently has two drivers in the car – Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas – who will want to try to play their cards until they are given the opportunity to do so. Bottas in particular, ex-Mercedes and with great experience in F1, could be a profile theoretically suited to Audi's entry. The interested party, however, aware that his chances of remaining in the team are not very high, would already be ready looking around.
Alternative options
“Audi is the only option for the future? No it is not – Bottas responded to the site RacingNews365who asked him about possible plans for 2025 – there are options, but at the moment it's all about F1. I feel like things should start to settle very soon now that Fernando [Alonso] he decided to stay [all’Aston Martin]. The next steps will be to figure out what Carlos will do [Sainz] and what Mercedes will do. I would say that ideally in the next few weeks things will start to settle down and I'm working on that: the talks have started, it should be an interesting few weeks”.
In case of non-confirmation in Sauber, there could only be two realistic options for Bottas in the Circus: a move to Haas – but first he will have to decide what to do with Kevin Magnussen, taking the hiring of rookie Ollie Bearman for granted – or a return to Williamswhere, however, Andrea Kimi Antonelli could land if Toto Wolff was not convinced to start him immediately as a starter in Mercedes.
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