The Finnish F1 hero told Autosport why he still wants to continue with the F1 series after a miserable season.
Valtteri Bottas the last season of his career so far as an F1 racing driver was a complete disaster. The experienced Finn did not get any World Cup points during the season.
Still, Bottas decided to continue his career with the F1 series. After the season, he put his name on the back-up driver deal offered by Mercedes. Why the hell?
– I have everything nicely balanced, and I don’t feel that F1 is tiring me. I feel that I still have a lot to give to the sport, whatever the role, says Bottas In an interview with Autosport.
The crowd changed
The Sauber was such an incredibly slow car last season that Bottas simply had no chance to fight for World Championship points with it except in a couple of races.
The team did not want to invest fully in last season. It preferred to focus on the future Audi project, which will start in the F1 series in 2026.
According to Bottas, the lack of success was also a result of the high turnover in the management ladder. People came and went, which made it much more difficult to build a solid foundation. According to Bottas, the situation is completely different in the top teams.
– At Mercedes, our strength was that everyone had long, long contracts. There was always stability, so you could focus on work, and you didn’t have to spend time looking for and firing new people, Bottas recalls.
Racing
Valtteri Bottas will be Mersu’s backup driver next season. Elle Laitila
Since Sauber had no chance of success in the F1 series, Bottas has been satisfying his passion for racing in his spare time. For example, in October he participated in the gravel road cycling World Championships in Belgium.
– I set the World Cup as a goal – and I achieved it. I ended up roughly in the middle class, and I was actually really happy with that, Bottas says.
In November, the man, on the other hand, ran a full-scale triathlon at his lodging. First, Bottas swam 3,800 meters in the pool, then there was a 180-kilometer run on the back of an exercise bike and finally a marathon, i.e. 42 kilometers of tingling, on a treadmill.
– Halfway through I thought, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? But then I thought, “Okay, I’m halfway there. I can’t possibly interrupt at this point.”
So he fought the whole job to the finish line.
– I am happy that I did it. It was a spiritually eye-opening experience. You had to dig really deep to learn how much it’s just about mental strength. Because in the end, when the body is completely empty, it’s all about willpower, Bottas says.
According to the man, the feeling after the job was “pretty cool”.