Audi F1 have reportedly completed their F1 2025 driver line-up with the Hinwil team re-signing Valtteri Bottas on a one-year deal, a team boss told Swiss publication Blick.
Audi F1, which will continue running as Sauber next season before the team’s highly anticipated rebrand in F1 2026, were one of the first teams to have a say in the driver market when they signed Nico Hulkenberg from Haas back in April.
Have Audi F1 signed off on their F1 2025 line-up?
Now they’re the last, outside the Red Bull outfits that is, to complete their line-up and it is reportedly Bottas who’ll be staying on.
Despite the Finn sitting down in 22nd place in the Drivers’ Championship in what is usually a 20-driver Formula 1 field, Blick reports he’s been handed a stay of execution with a new one-year deal.
The Swiss publication was informed of this by an unnamed team boss, who told the respected F1 reporter Roger Benoit in Singapore: “Do you know that Bottas has signed again for a year?”
The article went on to stress that this is someone who can be trusted having previously broken the news about Audi taking over Sauber.
How the F1 2025 grid is shaping up
Benoit, though, is clearly not happy with Audi/Sauber’s decision to stick with the 35-year-old instead of giving youth an opportunity.
“Audi-Sauber seems to be taking the cowardly transfer route for 2025 – and is opening a retirement home in Hinwil! Valtteri Bottas is said to have signed a new contract with the racing team,” Benoit wrote.
He added: “What a great Italian stroke of genius by the new boss Mattia Binotto, with the in-house lawyer and substitute team boss Alessandro Alunni-Bravi.”
The team were said to be considering Formula 2 driver and McLaren junior Gabriel Bortoleto with McLaren team boss Andrea Stella giving the Brazilian his blessing should he be offered a seat with the Sauber team.
“If Binotto came to me, when you have such a talent definitely you’re not going to stop him having a chance in Formula 1,” Stella said in Singapore on Thursday.
“At the same time, we will be definitely interested in finding a way to keep him in the McLaren family, because I think he’s a talent that in the future could be important for McLaren.”
.webp)
