Valtteri Bottas’s most recent stint as a full-time driver in F1 didn’t go to plan, largely due to the fact that the competitiveness of the Sauber C44 was non-existent.
Bottas registered a full season with no points, finishing 22nd out of the 24 drivers who entered a race during the 2024 F1 season.
The 10-time Grand Prix winner had to deal with a car that lacked pace in all areas and was sensitive to every nook and cranny that appeared on circuits throughout the year.
Bottas had to deal with these issues and lost his drive at the team as they looked towards a completely new line-up for the 2025 season.
Bottas made surprising comments about Sauber leadership towards the end of his tenure at the team, which would have made an impact on him watching the 2025 F1 season from the sidelines as a reserve driver for his former team, Mercedes.
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Jacques Villeneuve has warned Cadillac that they need to extract the Mercedes version of Valtteri Bottas
Having been a part of the Mercedes set-up since the December prior to the current campaign, former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve hopes that reuniting with his former team has had a positive effect on the Finnish driver’s motivation to compete with the very best drivers in motorsport.
Speaking on Sky Sports F1’s coverage of FP1 at the Dutch Grand Prix, Villeneuve was asked if Cadillac had made the right call in appointing Bottas to one of their seats for 2026, to which he responded (11:21 29/08), “The experience is important when you’re a new team.
Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
“But there are different kinds of experiences: good experiences, and bad experiences. Experience doesn’t mean you’re quick or great.
“But Bottas won against Lewis, and he was very active in moving the Mercedes car forward. It was hard for him at Sauber. I think he had just lost interest. So if you take the Bottas of Mercedes, then great.”
Former Sauber team principal Andreas Seidl believes Bottas didn’t deliver enough during his time at the team. Coming from winning consecutive constructors’ championships at Mercedes, the Swiss constructor believed Bottas would be an integral part of the team’s future development.
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Valtteri Bottas at Sauber was a shell of his former self that we saw at Mercedes
Bottas’s move to Sauber from Mercedes signified a shift for the Finnish driver in terms of his realistic expectations of where he should find himself once the chequered flag fell at the end of each Grand Prix.
Coming off the back of a fairly successful five-year stint at Mercedes, which saw him win 10 Grands Prix and take 20 pole positions, he failed to live up to expectations past his first season with the team in 2022.
YearPointsPosition20224910th20231015th2024022ndValtteri Bottas’s record in the driver’s championship with Sauber
He claimed 49 points in his debut season with the Swiss constructor, which started to dwindle as the seasons progressed. He registered just 10 points in the following 2023 campaign, before failing to register any in 2024.
The lack of competitiveness at Sauber may have had something to do with Bottas losing interest in racing, as pointed out by Villeneuve.
However, Martin Brundle has warned Bottas about early frustrations at Cadillac due to his first season with the team also being the American constructor’s maiden season in F1.
He will need to take Brundle’s comments on board if he wants to see out the multi-year agreement that he has in place with Cadillac.