168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Valtteri Bottas has revealed he held talks with two rival F1 teams before losing his Sauber seat for 2025.

The 35-year-old Finn has rejoined Mercedes as a reserve driver for the upcoming season to🌄 act as a back-up option for George Russell and Anꦗdrea Kimi Antonelli.

Bottas’ return to Mercedes came after he lost his drive at Sauber, who opted for a completely refreshed driver line-up for 2025. Sauber signed Nico Hulkenberg from Haas and Formula 2 champion G⛄abriel Bortoleto.

Bottas has now confirmed he spoke to both Williams and Haas as they evaluated thei🐟r driver options for the upcoming campaign.

“We were in very deep talks w💙ith Williams for a long time,” Botta🃏s told .

“That became my priority and, earlier in the year, we were in talks with Ayao for a drive wit🌺h Haas.

“But I decid♕ed to put more eggs in the basket to go to Williams. Then that didn’t happen because Carlos and what he brings to the team in terms of the financial gains.

“Then I was left with this [Audi] project and it would have been nice, but I thinkಞ the bigger peopl🅘e higher up thought a change is needed, including the drivers.”

Bottas thought he would be key to Audi project

Bottas said he was fully expecting to stay at Sauber for when the Swiss ♊outfit morphed into Audi for 2026.

🦋But it soon be꧅came clear to Bottas that Audi’s top management were starting to assess other candidates.

“Coming to the end of my cont꧃ract, I started having a lot of questions about the future,” he said. “But I was always very confident that I’d be on the grid, because that is how it looked.

“For the board of Audi, the decisions꧙ like drivers for the future will need to go through t🔯hem.

“And s𒊎ome people really wanted me, but then some people wanted a change and to bring in a young driver.

“It was hard because I always got the indication, especially when Mattia joined, that I would be the pi﷽llar for the project, so it was hard to jump 100 per cent into something else because I got promised I would have a seat.

“Of course, you still want to look around but you can’t commit⛎ to a🐈nything, so then I was just waiting: ‘Okay, when do we sign?’

“And thatꦏ became a question on a weekly basis even though everything was agreed and ready on paper.

“When tᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚhat was delayed, then I kind of understood: ‘OK, there is something going on here and it is not going𒐪 to be good for me.’”