1 week Ago By Will Wood
Few things invigorate the Formula 1 fanbase more than an exciting young prospect being announced to be joining the grid for the upcoming season. Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free But Bortoleto’s arrival on the scene means both of the team’s current drivers – Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu – will be off the grid next season. Zhou’s tenure in the sport after three seasons may not have prompted much outrage from F1’s core fans, who largely feel China’s first F1 driver has reached the end of his natural lifespan in the sport.
But several RaceFans readers expressed their sympathies for Bottas appearing to be out of luck at the end of his 13th world championship season. After Sauber could not find a way inside the top ten during last weekend’s wet and wild Brazilian Grand Prix, it’s difficult to see the team getting any opportunities to score a point before the end of the season barring some kind of chaotic race. So it’s now nearly inevitable that Bottas will finish the season as the 23rd placed driver in the championship.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free It will be easily Bottas’s worst season in his grand prix career, even less successful than his debut campaign in an especially uncompetitive Williams in 2013, where only an eighth place in the penultimate round in the United States saved him from going scoreless. With a best finish of 13th over the first 21 rounds of the season so far – something that even Logan Sargeant can boast a superior record to despite not having raced in the series since August – only a point can prevent Bottas from the ignominy of being the last placed driver in the championship. Glancing at the results alone, it’s easy to assume that Bottas has been mediocre at best, unable to overcome the poor performance of his car.
However, that is an unkind assessment of the fourth-most experienced driver on the current grid behind Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez. For one thing, the 2024 Sauber is an especially poor car relative to its rivals in the field. Over the 21 Q1 sessions held this year so far, the C44 has been an average of 1.
16% from the fastest time – a margin that is hardly poor compared to several F1 cars throughout history, but comfortably the worst of the ten cars on the current grid. Sauber have noticeably slipped away from the pack as the season has progressed too. Zhou was closest to scoring the team’s elusive first point of the championship in the season-opener in Bahrain, taking the 11th place finish that ensured he will likely finish ahead of Bottas in the championship.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Bottas had what was likely Sauber’s best opportunity to score points all season in the fourth round in China. Having qualified in tenth after the team’s sole Q3 appearance all season, Bottas was in a genuine fight for the final point against Nico Hulkenberg until, just 19 laps in, a drivetrain failure put him out of contention. Bottas’s opportunity for his best result all season had gone begging through no fault of his own.
In a car that is routinely at the back of the field, Zhou is the only real barometer that Bottas’s performance can be measured against. Although the results over their first two seasons together favoured Bottas, 2024 has seen Zhou trounced by his more experienced team mate. Bottas has only been out-qualified by Zhou a single time on Saturdays, during the wet qualifying session at Silverstone.
On Sundays, Bottas has finished ahead of his team mate 13 times in races where they were both classified. Despite being in the slowest car, Bottas has only been the last runner classified on a single occasion all season. While almost always finishing ahead of his team mate, Bottas beat Logan Sargeant’s Williams to the chequered flag more often than not, has finished ahead of both Aston Martin drivers four times each and, incredibly, has even beat Sergio Perez three times in 2024.
If there is a criticism to have about Bottas in 2024, it is his starts. Despite often qualifying ahead of cars that are faster, Bottas has struggled to hold onto those positions over the opening laps of grands prix. He has lost at least one place on the first lap of 11 rounds so far with a net position change of -3 taking into account all of the rounds held so far.
Given that is with an average grid position of 15th, where there are a lot more cars ahead of him than behind him, that doesn’t reflect well on his race craft. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Although he’s staring down the barrel of his first points-less season in Formula 1, Bottas has previously suggested that he feels he is actually driving better this year than he was during his later seasons with Mercedes when he was winning races. “If you look at this season and the last season, when you’re fighting towards the back, obviously it’s much less visible what you can do and what kind of performances are you having,” he said.
“It’s pretty much against your team-mate that you can have a comparison. So for sure, you’re more out there if you’re fighting within the points and towards the front end. That’s just how it goes.
“But there are still people in the paddock who know what the real performance is, and especially within the team. They know how I’m performing weekend to weekend and that’s the main thing.” Unfortunately for Bottas, those performances do not seem to have been enough to convince his team’s management to stick with him alongside Hulkenberg for next season.
As he will not be racing a Formula 1 car in 2025, it seems as if his time in the sport may have come to its end as far as racing is concerned. But do not be to hasty to assume this is the last we have seen of the ten times grand prix winner – after all, before they found a way to return, even Hulkenberg, Kevin Magnussen and Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 careers once looked like they had come to an end before him. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free.
