Valtteri Bottas reveals talks with two F1 teams before Sauber axe

Valtteri Bottas has revealed he held talks with two rival F1 teams before losing his Sauber seat for 2025.

The 35-year-old Finn has rejoined Mercedes as a reserve driver for the upcoming season to act as a back-up option for George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Bottas’ return to Mercedes came after he lost his drive at Sauber, who opted for a completely refreshed driver line-up for 2025. Sauber signed Nico Hulkenberg from Haas and Formula 2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto.

Bottas has now confirmed he spoke to both Williams and Haas as they evaluated their driver options for the upcoming campaign.

“We were in very deep talks with Williams for a long time,” Bottas told RacingNews365.

“That became my priority and, earlier in the year, we were in talks with Ayao for a drive with Haas.

“But I decided to put more eggs in the basket to go to Williams. Then that didn’t happen because Carlos and what he brings to the team in terms of the financial gains.

“Then I was left with this [Audi] project and it would have been nice, but I think the bigger people higher up thought a change is needed, including the drivers.”

Bottas thought he would be key to Audi project

Bottas said he was fully expecting to stay at Sauber for when the Swiss outfit morphed into Audi for 2026.

But it soon became clear to Bottas that Audi’s top management were starting to assess other candidates.

“Coming to the end of my contract, I started having a lot of questions about the future,” he said. “But I was always very confident that I’d be on the grid, because that is how it looked.

“For the board of Audi, the decisions like drivers for the future will need to go through them.

“And some people really wanted me, but then some people wanted a change and to bring in a young driver.

“It was hard because I always got the indication, especially when Mattia joined, that I would be the pillar for the project, so it was hard to jump 100 per cent into something else because I got promised I would have a seat.

“Of course, you still want to look around but you can’t commit to anything, so then I was just waiting: ‘Okay, when do we sign?’

“And that became a question on a weekly basis even though everything was agreed and ready on paper.

“When that was delayed, then I kind of understood: ‘OK, there is something going on here and it is not going to be good for me.’”