by VALERIO BARRETTA
Bottas' gamble
Among Formula 1 observers, many wonder why Sauber gave Valtteri a seat Bottas until the end of the 2024 World Championship. It was expected that the Finn, fresh from a five-year stint at Mercedes lived in a winning environment, would at least give the right mentality to the team, helping it in performance and development in the delicate start of the impact era. soil.
In two years, Bottas has instead disappointed expectations, bringing the former Alfa Romeo 59 points, of which 46 in the first nine weekends of the 2022 World Championship, when the C42 was relatively fast and allowed him and Guanyu Zhou to consistently score points.
In 2023 the Finn has given little respect to the less experienced Chinese, and Sauber will have wondered whether his salary was well spent. Bottas, however, is looking beyond 2024: his focus is actually on 2026, when Audi will take command of operations by renaming the team and providing the engine for the new era of power units.
Bottas' words
“F1 is the most important thing for me. I'm still hungry to get back on the podium, sooner or later. The Audi project could be the next opportunity“, these are his words ad Autosport. “From what I understand, Audi will make decisions for the years to come early this year. So we haven't had any renewal discussions yet – we will have them in the first quarter of this year. However, staying in Hinwil is priority number one. But if for some reason things didn't work out that way, then I would absolutely talk to other teams. I want to be there because I feel like I still have things to do in this sport“.
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