Valtteri Bottas has brushed off recent speculation over his future in Formula 1, describing stories that appeared after the Canadian Grand Prix as \u201ccomplete bull****\u201d.<\/p>\n
Bottas<\/a> is in the early stages of his F1 return with 2026 newcomers Cadillac<\/a>, having spent the 2025 season as a Mercedes reserve driver after losing his seat at Kick Sauber.<\/p>\n He has slotted alongside fellow experienced racer Sergio Perez<\/a>, who comfortably led Cadillac\u2019s charge during the Montreal Sprint weekend \u2013 the Mexican lapping the best part of a second quicker than Bottas in both Qualifying sessions.<\/p>\n After the event, rumours swirled around social media \u2013 and spread to news outlets \u2013 suggesting that Bottas\u2019 place at the team was already under review, given Perez\u2019s apparent performance advantage.<\/p>\n However, Bottas was quick to shut down the internet gossip as he met with the media in Monaco, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s not the first time I\u2019ve faced those kind of rumours. It\u2019s a bit of a shame that somebody just makes up complete b******t, but that\u2019s normal in this sport.<\/p>\n \u201cI know my situation, the team knows my situation, and they support me 100%, so that\u2019s why from my side it was okay in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Pushed on what might have been behind the reports, the 10-time Grand Prix winner said: \u201cHeadlines. Clicks. That\u2019s my theory.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI was actually having my morning coffee, and when I saw the first rumour I kind of laughed about it.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of negative side of this sport sometimes. Sometimes people just want to make rumours to write stuff and make up stuff. I\u2019ve learned it\u2019s part of it, and it doesn\u2019t really affect me anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Speculation over his future aside, Bottas also pointed out that Cadillac have potentially found some answers as to why he was significantly down on pace in Canada compared to Perez.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have later this afternoon another meeting, but I caught up with the team last week about it and we can see issues, both on the power unit side and the car build side,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s as much as I can give you, but we can see reasons, which is good to see. We need to keep working on the quality of how we build the car, how we fit all the parts, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead to the challenge of Monaco, and the potential for Cadillac to score the best result of their F1 adventure so far, Bottas said: \u201cThis weekend always is an opportunity for everyone. As an example, remember some years ago, Jules Bianchi got his points for Marussia here<\/a>. Things like that can happen.<\/p>\n \u201cFor sure, you\u2019ve got to try and qualify well, but then even in the race you never know what happens. We take it as a nice opportunity ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valtteri Bottas has brushed off recent speculation over his future in Formula 1, describing stories that appeared after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-714643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}