Valtteri Bottas announces 2025 racing return after F1 axe
Bottas has been dropped by Sauber for the 2025 F1 season and has not found a new seat on the grid
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Your support makes all the difference.Valtteri Bottas will compete at next year’s Race of Champions as he eyes new racing opportunities after missing out on an F1 seat for next year.
Bottas, who has been an ever-present on the F1 grid since 2013, has been dropped by Sauber for 2025 with Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto replacing the Finn and Zhou Guanyu.
The 35-year-old is enduring the worst season of his career, with Sauber and their drivers still yet to score a point, and looks to be on the way out with no F1 seats available next year.
While Bottas has been linked with a reserve role at his former team Mercedes, the Finn has confirmed he will compete at the Race of Champions at the Accor Stadium in Sydney next March.
Bottas will be competing at the event for the second time, having raced alongside compatriot and two-time F1 world champion Mika Hakkinen in 2023.
There is a team event on 7 March, before the individual competition a day later.
Four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel will compete in Sydney alongside fellow German Mick Schumacher, who also missed out on a potential seat at Sauber.
Vettel won the individual ROC in London’s Olympic Stadium in 2015 and teamed up with Mick’s father Michael to win the Nations Cup for Germany six times.
Mick – whose two-year stint in F1 ended in 2022 when he was axed by Haas – finished runner-up at the ROC in Sweden last year and placed second alongside Vettel in Mexico in 2019.
The 2025 Race of Champions takes place a week before the first race of the F1 season – the Australian Grand Prix – at Albert Park, Melbourne.
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