{"id":919311,"date":"2026-10-03T17:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T17:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/919311\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T17:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T17:24:10","slug":"valtteri-bottas-confirms-stance-following-f1-imola-tax-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/919311\/","title":{"rendered":"Valtteri Bottas confirms stance following F1 Imola tax comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Valtteri Bottas has clarified<a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Formula 1<\/a> drivers have \u201cno problem\u201d paying taxes when they race in Italy, expanding on comments he made at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It has been mooted that the 2026 F1 season finale could take place in Imola rather than Abu Dhabi, should current plans be cancelled due to the war in the Middle East. However, speaking on Thursday ahead of the race at Sepang, Bottas claimed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2026\/10\/01\/valtteri-bottas-f1-season-finale-oppose\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cno driver really wants to race in Italy\u201d<\/a> owing to its current tax situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Italy, foreign athletes are considered to be freelancers and are therefore required to pay tax on money earned while competing in the nation. It has been reported that several F1 drivers were sent letters earlier this year by Italy\u2019s financial police, the Guardia di Finanza, asking them to submit tax returns on money they had earned from the last seven years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard about the Italian tax? No driver wants to really race in Italy because of recent events, what happened,\u201d Bottas said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Bottas-Cadillac-F1-1024x576.webp\" alt=\"Cadillac are yet to score their first F1 points\" class=\"wp-image-254823\"  \/>Valtteri Bottas has clarified his comments<\/p>\n<p>Valtteri Bottas: F1 drivers have \u201cno problem\u201d paying taxes<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having received criticism for his comments, Bottas told Sky Sports F1 he believes they were blown out of proportion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s one of those classic examples, where I explained about the situation and they only took just the best bits, to make it look really bad for me,\u201d he said after Friday practice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHonestly, we have no problem with paying taxes \u2013 as long as we know. We race in many countries and in more than 50 percent of the countries we go to, there\u2019s a certain percentage. And that\u2019s okay, as long as we know.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBut it\u2019s kind of frustrating the drivers that, in this case, they went back seven or eight years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe always got told we don\u2019t have to file anything for Italy, otherwise we would have. So that kind of came up with this thing, and obviously it\u2019s a substantial amount. I\u2019m sure it would annoy anyone, that\u2019s just how it goes, but it would have been nice to know in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Red Bull driver Max Verstappen also addressed the comments, stating: \u201cThere is no tax issue. You just have to pay tax.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Haas\u2019s Ollie Bearman, now in his second F1 season, joked that \u201cthe tax complication is a bit less relevant to me than some of the others\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A decision over where the final two races \u2013 scheduled to be held in Qatar and Abu Dhabi \u2013 will take place is set to be made in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">READ MORE: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valtteri Bottas has clarified Formula 1 drivers have \u201cno problem\u201d paying taxes when they race in Italy, expanding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,4228,48,578,576,577,82,1713],"class_list":["post-919311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-cadillac","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-valtteri-bottas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919311","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=919311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}