It was claimed that Cadillac is unhappy with Bottas\u2019s performances so far this season and wanted to replace him with American Formula 2 driver Colton Herta. However, Herta does not currently have the required points needed to obtain a superlicence.<\/p>\n
![\"American](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/xpb_1410401_hires.jpg\")
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American F2 racer Herta was linked with Bottas’s seat<\/p>\n
Cadillac has now addressed the speculation head on, with team boss Lowdon shutting down any suggestion that Bottas could leave.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere is no foundation of truth in any of the rumours at all,\u201d Lowdon is quoted as saying by PlanetF1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can categorically say that. Just\u2026 where do I start on the rumours themselves? I\u2019ll make it really, really clear factually, they\u2019re completely incorrect. There\u2019s no basis of truth whatsoever in any of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecondly, if we look at the job that both drivers are doing, both Valtteri and Checo [Perez], they\u2019re doing way more than drivers in some other teams are having to do, because we\u2019re constructing the team while we\u2019re racing at the same time, and that\u2019s a very unusual task.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bottas joined Cadillac alongside Sergio Perez<\/a> after both drivers spent the 2025 season on the sidelines, having lost their respective seats at Audi<\/a> (then Sauber) and Red Bull<\/a> at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n It is understood that both agreed multi-year contracts with Cadillac, which has joined the grid as F1\u2019s 11th team in 2026.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cWith all due respect, the outside world doesn\u2019t know what we\u2019re asking these drivers to do,\u201d Lowdon added.<\/p>\n \u201cEither session to session or race to race, and also what we\u2019re asking them to do in terms of developing the car.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear that we\u2019re trying to get more pace into the car, although you know, I have to say that again, there were similar rumours before we even started racing, suggesting that we\u2019d struggle to get within 107 per cent of qualifying.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just a few fractions of a per cent in Montreal, where we missed out on advancing in the Sprint Qualifying again, so there\u2019s not only no foundation of truth, but there\u2019s no logic either to what anybody\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n Bottas’s seat at Cadillac is safe<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of rumours, and to be honest, I haven\u2019t read all of them, but a few that I\u2019ve read just don\u2019t even seem to take into account some of the absolute basic rules of Formula 1, because some of them suggest they would put Colton in to replace Valtteri in the next few races, or whatever.<\/p>\n \u201cColton doesn\u2019t have any super license points (sic), and to some extent, that probably says it all about the quality of some of the rumours, but I prefer not to focus on pointing out the obvious. I think the fans can see through all of that.<\/p>\n \u201cColton has a programme that he\u2019s working to, Checo has a programme with us that he\u2019s working to, and Valtteri the same; they\u2019re all contributing in their own way to what we\u2019re trying to do in establishing the Cadillac Formula 1 team.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very important to make it abundantly clear that there is absolutely not one shred of actual truth or evidence to any of the rumours suggesting that either Valtteri is at risk or indeed that Checo might go to another team.\u201d<\/p>\n Cadillac currently sits 10th in the constructors\u2019 championship and is yet to score a point.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cadillac Formula 1 team principal Graeme Lowdon has rubbished rumours that Valtteri Bottas could be sacked. Speculation began…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,3550,817,806,805,803,804,2072,85,1512],"class_list":["post-702409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cadillac","tag-f1","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sergio-perez","tag-sports","tag-valtteri-bottas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Bottas's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/xpb_1410223_hires.jpg\")
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