Valtteri Bottas will get behind the wheel of a Ferrari Formula 1 car for the first time, when he takes part in the Adelaide Motorsport Festival in March.
Bottas, who will be rejoining the Formula 1 grid with Cadillac in 2026, will drive the Ferrari 156/85, the Scuderia’s 1985 machine, around the Victoria Park section of Adelaide’s former F1 circuit.
Valtteri Bottas to drive 1985 Ferrari at Adelaide Motorsport Festival
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The two-day festival sees a wide variety of cars take to the asphalt in the weekend building up to the Australian Grand Prix, with the event taking place from February 28th to March 1st.
Cadillac joins Formula 1 as power unit customers of Ferrari for its first two seasons, providing at least one link with the Scuderia as the Finn takes the wheel of Ferrari’s 1985 challenger, which took two race victories and eight further podiums at the hands of Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson.
1985 also represented the first season in which Formula 1 took to the streets of Adelaide for the season finale, which held the Australian Grand Prix until the sport’s move to Albert Park in Melbourne in 1996.
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Bottas will be driving the #27 chassis as used by Alboreto in a demo run at 1.45pm on Sunday 1 March, which comes soon after the Finn drives a V8-powered big-block Holden HQ Monaro in the morning.
The new Cadillac driver will also be interacting with fans at a meet-and-greet at the festival, in the nation which has become something of an adopted home for him in recent years.
He and his partner, Australian cyclist Tiffany Cromwell, bought a vineyard around 45 minutes south of Adelaide back in November, along with Bottas having been a co-founder of the RADL GRVL gravel cycling event in South Australia.
The Adelaide Motorsport Festival comes on the eve of Formula 1’s first race of 2026, with Bottas and new teammate, Sergio Perez, set to return to the grid with Cadillac at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
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