He returned to Mercedes after losing his Formula 1 race seat but Valtteri Bottas doesn’t plan to stick around for long, eyeing a 2026 seat elsewhere – or possibly an F1 exit altogether

Valtteri Bottas is back at Mercedes F1 as a reserve driver – for now(Image: Getty Images)

Valtteri Bottas insists “I’ve got a good few years in me” as he eyes a return to the Formula 1 grid. The Finn, 35, lost his place on the grid last December after three years at Sauber, with new parent company Audi wanting to pick its own racers.

So he returned to Mercedes, where he previously spent five years as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate and won 10 races, as a reserve. But Bottas is already fed up of being on the sidelines. “The first race was probably the hardest,” he told Mirror Sport at the start of our conversation in the Mercedes motorhome.

“I miss giving it all out there in the qualifying, being on the limit. I miss the racing as a whole and seeing the starting grid just before the race. It’s like, ‘Damn, I just want to be out there’.

“But I think it’s natural. I think also to me that confirms that I still feel like I’ve got a good few years of racing in me. And I still love it. I never doubted that I wanted to continue racing, but it just confirms that I still have a big hunger for it. I want to be back on the grid next year, basically. That’s the target.”

To that end, Bottas and his team have been assessing their options and one of them is clear and obvious – the newcomers. F1 will have 22 drivers on the grid next year with Cadillac joining as the sport’s 11th team and Bottas has been heavily linked with one of the two new seats available.

He confirms he has held talks with the American outfit: “The new team joining the sport is also exciting. I think Cadillac, what we’ve seen so far, looks a really cool and interesting project. As a driver, you can kind of start from scratch. Everything is new, so you can actually make a really big impact and, for me, that’s quite interesting. There’s been some [discussions]. But they are not in a rush and neither am I, really.”

Around a dozen drivers are thought to be keen on one of the Cadillac seats, but Bottas isn’t one to shy away from competition. He smiled: “My strength is still experience. I’ve been in three different teams, I’ve been part of winning five constructors’ championships. So I think that’s my strength, that I’ve been in an environment and seen what it actually needs for a team to be winning.”

If he doesn’t get onto the 2026 grid, he’d rather race elsewhere than stay on the fringes of F1. Bottas said: “F1 is the priority, but then I’ve got to have a plan B. And one solid option would be IndyCar – I’ve had some discussions, yeah. I think just over the years in this sport, I’ve learned you need to have a plan B. Until pen hits the paper here, nothing is confirmed and I saw it last year, how things went. So I’m not doing that mistake again.”

Valtteri Bottas spent five seasons as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate during a period of huge Mercedes success(Image: Getty Images)

Bottas has had an F1 career most could only dream of, with five teams’ title wins and 10 race victories – only Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso have better records on the current grid. But if he doesn’t get another shot, he admits he won’t be satisfied that he has done all he can in the sport.

He said: “No, [I’m] never happy. I mean, yes, if I look at the big picture, yes, I’ve achieved some cool stuff. But there’s still this hunger in me that I still want something more. That’s why I’m still here.”