Valtteri Bottas has said he is likely to give up on chasing a Formula 1 future if he cannot land a place on the 2026 grid.

The Finn is without a race seat this year having been let go by Sauber. New owner Audi wanted to install a new driver line-up for 2025 ahead of the transition to being a works from next year and so hired veteran Nico Hulkenberg and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.

That decision left Bottas and team-mate Zhou Guanyu out in the cold. The latter’s 2025 plans are not yet clear although he has been heavily linked with a reserve role at Ferrari, while Bottas has already accepted a similar offer back with his old Mercedes team.

The Silver Arrows moved quickly to bring their former racer, who won 10 Grands Prix over five seasons as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate, back into the fold. Bottas replaces Mick Schumacher who, after two years as their reserve driver, decided to quit and focus fully on racing with Alpine in the World Endurance Championship.

A reserve role is not what Bottas wanted for the upcoming season. And if, like Schumacher, he struggles to turn it into a race seat and a long-term plan with any team for the 2026 campaign and beyond, he admits he would then turn his focus away from F1.

“There needs to be a meaning,” the 35-year-old told Motorsport Week. “A random one-year deal somewhere at this stage of my career is not doing me much. There would need to be a clear plan.

“And if there wouldn’t be, let’s say for ’26, then definitely I would need to look elsewhere. Or I can do still a good career [in another series].”

Bottas has interests outside of F1 including cycling – he has even competed in gravel bike events in recent years – while he has also become a popular character for his light-hearted antics on social media. And although it would be difficult, he says that his current stance on his future means he would accept the door back into F1 would be shut.

But he insists it is possible to return after even a lengthy absence, adding: “Being away from the grid for more than a year, I think then it starts to hurt. It will be more and more difficult to come back if you’re away for more than a year. So yeah, for now that’s my thinking. But it could be different tomorrow.

“There are many examples that [a return] can be done. This will be my 12th season in Formula 1. You just bring this routine and the feeling for the driving that you can come back.”

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