Bottas makes 'disappearing' claim after misery of Stake F1 years

Valtteri Bottas felt he 'disappeared' from Formula 1 in the eyes of many people during the final two years of his time with Sauber.

After five years with Mercedes, Bottas opted for a move to the Sauber organisation for the 2022 campaign, with the team operating then as Alfa Romeo.

With the introduction of the ground-effect regulations at that time, the team and Bottas started strongly, with the Finn scoring points in seven of the first nine grands prix.

Over the remaining 59 races of his time with Sauber, however, Bottas only finished in the points on six further occasions, and for the first time in his F1 career last year, he failed to score a single point.

By his admission, and with a degree of understatement, Bottas claims 2024 "didn't pan out well", and the fact he failed to net a race seat for this term was "not an ideal situation".

Bottas felt he had become anonymous in many respects, resulting in the fact he will not be on the grid for the upcoming campaign, instead, returning to Mercedes to take on the role of reserve driver.

Adding that the past two seasons were "extremely tough...especially 2024", speaking to RacingNews365, he said: "Fighting very much towards the back end of the grid, race to race, it is almost like I disappeared to some people. 

"It was hard for me to prove what I can do. You know the name of the game, even though I don't feel any degradation of my abilities and how I feel in the car. Nothing has changed there.

"I would say that physically, I am in an even better shape now, and, of course, the more you drive, the more it helps with fitness, but in terms of pure data and numbers, I've never been more fit."

Sauber has 'stability' with Audi

Naturally, Bottas had hoped to continue with Sauber into this term and beyond when it morphs into the Audi factory team in 2026.

Despite the misery he endured in 2024, he could at least see the progress being made last year, and the buzz around what will transpire next, in particular under CEO and CTO Mattia Binotto after he replaced Andreas Seidl. 

"I feel like now, finally, the team is starting to have that right stability and a plan," he said. "The change in leadership shook up many things.

"I think they have all the opportunities to do well, but this is an extremely difficult sport, and of course, a lot of it depends on the power unit, how that's going to come out.

"But in terms of the core team itself, it's getting there. It's taken a while, but it's getting there."