Why Bottas believes his F1 reserve driver role is the fastest route back to a race seat

For the first time since 2012, Formula 1 is going racing this season without one of its great modern characters: the eclectic Valtteri Bottas.

The 35-year-old Finn missed out on prolonging his stay at Sauber ahead of its transition to Audi for 2026. But, now back at Mercedes as the team’s reserve driver for 2025 – a role he also jointly holds for McLaren and Williams as part of their engine supply deals – Bottas vows he’s not done with grand prix racing yet.

It’s his aim, as he makes clear in this wide-ranging interview, that he’ll be back on the grid in 2026. Whether that’s with newcomer Cadillac, persuading an existing squad to extend his 246 F1 starts, or indeed if that is Bottas’s final total, he’ll discover this year.

Autosport: Every day, it seems, we wake up to discover Valtteri Bottas doing something interesting on Instagram – whether that’s cycling in Australia, seeing the snow in Finland, all the stuff that you’ve been doing around the world. In this different role as a third driver for Mercedes, you seem to be living your best life. Social media impressions aren’t always accurate, but is it that good?

Valtteri Bottas: Yeah, for sure. The last years I’ve really learned more and more to live. And especially now, as the role I have this year is a bit different. I definitely had more flexibility in terms of preparing for the season and less pressure. So, I think it’s right that I’m really trying to live almost every day as if it is my last. And it’s good fun.

AS: What was the best thing you did over the F1 off-season? In the Australian summer, the European winter, any highlights?

VB: I didn’t have much of a European winter – only a few days in Finland. This year, I was really chasing the sun over winter. The most fun probably was swimming with sea lions and dolphins in South Australia, in a place called Baird Bay – properly getting to touch them, being within one metre. That was pretty unreal. The night before, there was a shark attack in the region. And, in my head, sea lions are shark food. So, I was a bit nervous, but I’m glad I did it.

Reserve driver role (for McLaren and Williams as well as Mercedes) keeps Bottas in the picture

Photo by: GSI / Icon Sport via Getty Images

AS: Do you need the team’s permission to do that? Would you have been able to do that if you were an active F1 driver? 

VB: I think that would still be OK, but it really depends on the team. There’s still some things that I’m banned from doing, like free climbing, which I wouldn’t do anyway.

AS: We started with the off-track stuff because you’re not racing this year, so how are you feeling about your position as Mercedes’ third driver? 

VB: When we signed with Mercedes [a deal announced just before last Christmas], which was actually quite quickly after the Sauber news, I had time to be ready for this kind of different era or role. So, yeah, it’s been fine. I had to just accept to myself that, ‘OK, yeah, there’s probably not going to be any racing’.

Of course, you never know, but I’m actually really thankful to Toto [Wolff] for giving me this opportunity again to be part of a great team, great brand, and I think it’s in a good role. And, for me, it’s important to be present, to still keep up to date with what’s happening in this sport with a good team, to be able to do some testing. Because I want to be back on the grid. And if I would just disappear somewhere, people tend to forget your name.

AS: Is that why you’re not racing Hypercars in World Endurance, say, or another category altogether? Because you feel that remaining attached to F1 represents the best chance to get back to racing? 

VB: Exactly that, yeah.

AS: Would sportscars be of interest one day?

VB: It’s not on top of my list, Hypercars, but it’s in the list. Just not on top.

AS: What is?

VB: Still single-seaters, maybe America. But that would be if I wasn’t able to get back on the grid in F1 for 2026. Then that’s something I would have to consider quite seriously.  

Extracurricular racing isn’t a top priority, but Autosport can’t help but suggest the Bathurst 1000 to Australophile Bottas

Photo by: Daniel Kalisz / Getty Images

AS: What about Supercars in Australia?

VB: That’s something, maybe not yet, but one of the events. I’ve actually got the flexibility even this year to do stuff if I feel like I need to get some racing in. So, that’s definitely one option which would be fun, because I do like Australia.  

AS: How will your F1 testing programme work this year?

VB: Mainly TPC [Testing of Previous Cars, which Bottas has already conducted with McLaren and its 2023 MCL60] stuff, maybe some Pirelli stuff. Hopefully I’ll get quite a few days this year. Because I need to keep driving something, and if I get enough of those days, then maybe I don’t need to do any racing. But, if I don’t, then probably I should do one-off events. 

AS: The 2025 Supercars Bathurst 1000 sits handily between the Singapore and United States F1 races, but what is it you’re looking to keep sharp? What is it as a driver you don’t want to diminish? 

VB: Especially in Formula 1, the speeds, they are so quick. Things happen very quickly, so you just don’t want to lose that sensation and getting used to the speed again and how quickly things come at you while you drive. And of course, the car control is something that if you regularly drive something on the limit, then you don’t lose your skill and that feeling you have in the car.

AS: How does your reserve role work? I saw you capturing social media ‘content’ for Mercedes in the Bahrain pitlane during testing. How is that all balanced with being ready to race?

VB: It’s different, of course. My coffee consumption has gone up! Like, there’s a bit more time to hang around and speak to people. Less stressful, for sure. Less media than as a race driver, but then more events with sponsors and partners.

Still involved in all the engineering meetings, still following every session on the intercom and TV. Just to keep up to date in case I’ve got to jump in. And also, in general, if I have any ideas or questions or even a driver’s view on certain things, then I speak up. Following my first grand prix in the garage in the last 12 years in Australia actually went better than I thought. It was OK, but made me miss racing.

Bottas “thinking out loud on the radio” in Australia ended up being the option the team took

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Getty Images

AS: That was a wild, wet race – were you able to help with any strategy calls as Carlos Sainz did after he’d crashed out for Williams?

VB: There were a few comments here and there that I suggested and some were applied. Whether it came to the places to cool down the tyres, because sometimes on TV you actually see a bit more than as a driver, if you’re [outside the car]. Mainly for Kimi [Antonelli]. And then when people were on slicks when the rain hit, I was actually just thinking out loud on the radio to Toto that I would actually come in this lap and that’s what ended up happening.

AS: Just on Kimi, do you sort of feel like you’re acting like a mentor at all for him?

VB: I think mentor is probably, I don’t know, maybe a bit too much as a word. But I’m here to help him. He has asked questions and there will be cases where he’ll need help, and I’ve told him certain things here and there if I feel like I can help. He’s obviously got a great engineering team behind him and he’s getting so much information at the moment, the last few months, that also I don’t want to overload him. But I’m definitely here to help him and the whole team.  

AS: In your long F1 career, you’ve raced in the midfield, fought at the front and scrapped at the back. What’s harder – driving a poor car for a backmarker team, or being in a frontrunning squad and your opposition is a Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen?

VB: Based on all the experience I’ve had, it’s definitely harder when you don’t have the car and the machinery. Like, yeah, it’s still intense, consuming and stressful to fight at the top. But I would still always choose that, based on everything I’ve seen. I think it’s just the mentality you have as a driver, and nothing beats a good result or if you meet your targets.  

Bottas’s last grand prix victory was taken in style from inherited pole at Istanbul in 2021

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Getty Images

AS: How do you look back on your five years racing for Mercedes now? 

VB: I mean, it went pretty quickly. Five years just felt like two seasons. Everything goes quickly when you’re just really focusing one race after another, every winter trying to find something more, and work out how you can win the title.

So, definitely consuming, but yeah, in the end, great times. I would do anything now if I could be back in a car like that. But that’s just how it is. And in the end, we achieved some great things. Five constructors’ titles in a row. It was good times in the end, but consuming.  

AS: That suggests it took a toll – what do you mean? 

VB: No, it’s just stressful, there’s high pressure. You’re giving everything you have. Which is normal. That’s, in the end, what I worked all my life for – to try and win races. But that’s normal in sports.

AS: You suggested earlier that remaining in the paddock will be critical to racing again in F1 in 2026. Is that like how Nico Hulkenberg would badger Guenther Steiner for a shot at Haas in 2023, from his position as an Aston Martin reserve and paddock pundit?

VB: I think it can make a difference, if you’re a driver who’s around versus if you’re a driver who disappears completely. It has its positives to be here and to speak to people. But it’s more I do it for myself. I want to keep up to date with what’s happening with the sport.

It’s great to be with a great team, to see how they operate, what kind of gains they’re finding and why. Which can also help me, probably, in the future. And yeah, also as a reserve, you’ve got to be here because if you get the call, you want to be ready.

From his broad experience, Bottas can state it’s “definitely harder” as an F1 driver to be scrapping at the back of the field

Photo by: GSI / Icon Sport via Getty Images

AS: You’ll be braced for this question, but is Cadillac your best shot at a comeback as an extra team in 2026?

VB: I think this season will show. We’ve obviously got many rookie drivers and, in this sport, you never know. Something can trigger again some changes within different teams and drivers. But it’s, for sure, a very interesting option. It wouldn’t be an easy route, but if there’s a clear plan of how to get there, then it could be a really interesting project, which I think experience can help. So, let’s wait and see.  

AS: How well do you know Cadillac team principal Graeme Lowdon given he’s Zhou Guanyu’s manager?

VB: Yeah, I know Graeme well. But I don’t think he’s making all the decisions. In the end, they’ve got a big company backing the project. Again, they’ve got a board and all these things who make decisions or at least influence the decisions as this sport is still a business and there are politics involved. But, yeah, at least he’s seen me driving alongside Zhou and he knows what I can do.

AS: But if Cadillac wants an experienced F1 hand alongside a rookie or an American IndyCar convert, you must feel in a reasonably strong position to offer that, given you’re here regularly and the other main such option, Sergio Perez, is absent…

VB: It doesn’t hurt me for sure. Let’s put it that way.

AS: What’s Toto saying? Would he help you get back on the grid? 

VB: He’s told me that he would love to see me racing still. And he agreed with me when I told him that I still feel like I’m not done with the sport yet. It’s not the time yet. So, I think he would be happy to see me in a race seat. And of course, if it’s not here at Mercedes, he wouldn’t stand in the way. 

This article is one of many in the new monthly issue of Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the June 2025 issue and subscribe today.

As much as he’s raring to race again, Bottas does appreciate the benefits of his current rather less hectic schedule

Photo by: Mercedes-Benz