Valtteri Bottas hopes to be in the long-term plans for the Sauber F1 Team and wants to be there when their alliance with Audi Sport begins in the 2026 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.
The Finn joined Sauber, currently known as Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN, ahead of the 2022 season and started the year superbly, scoring points in seven of the first nine races, although the second half of the year has been less fruitful, with his point in the Mexico City Grand Prix last time out his first top ten finish since the Canadian Grand Prix in June.
Bottas feels there is big potential for the team when they link up with Audi, and he hopes that he can do enough to keep himself in with a chance of staying with them all the way up to 2026 and beyond.
“Why not? I’m 33 years old, so I hope that I’m going to be there,” Bottas is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “If you look at the big picture, I think it’s huge. There’s big potential for Sauber with Audi.
“No doubt they want to succeed in the future. They want to do well and show they’re serious.
“So, I think for any driver on the grid, especially for me now being already part of Sauber, it would be very interesting to be part of that project. I definitely think it’s possible.”
Bottas knows a lot of work still needs to be done for the team to become competitive in Formula 1, but with Audi’s arrival in the sport, he hopes the gap between them and those at the front of the field, including his former employers at the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, can close.
“There’s still work to do, no doubt,” Bottas added. “That’s the fact. But it’s not that far, you know, the facilities are there.
“Some facilities, some machinery can be better compared to a championship-winning team. And the amount of people in the team is still a bit less than at least what I saw last year.
“But with the support of a manufacturer like Audi I see no reason why it wouldn’t be possible. I think [the timeline] depends on how much Audi is going to support this team before they officially come as a manufacturer.
“Obviously, nothing changes for next year. We’re still with Alfa Romeo. And of course, we hope that we can have a better car than this year. But then I think it depends on the support from 2024 onwards.
“If [Audi] are willing to support, if they’re really helping a lot and supporting and if the power unit is good for 2026, which is impossible to predict at the moment, then why not.”