Valtteri Bottas is returning to Mercedes because the staff’s new reserve driver for the 2025 season.
The skilled Finn has been left with out a race seat on subsequent yr’s Components 1 grid after being launched by Sauber and had been anticipated to return to Mercedes, the place he gained 10 races as team-mate to Lewis Hamilton from 2017 to 2021.
Bottas replaces Mick Schumacher within the reserve driver function after the German introduced his exit from the staff final month to pursue different alternatives in motorsport.
With Hamilton leaving the staff for Ferrari, 18-year-old Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli has been handed the vacant race seat subsequent to George Russell.
“I am pleased to lastly reply the query I’ve posed over the previous month. Returning house to the Mercedes household as third driver for 2025 is what’s subsequent and I could not be extra happy,” mentioned Bottas.
“I need to thank Toto [Wolff], the staff at Brackley, and everybody on the three-pointed star for welcoming me again with open arms.
“Regardless of the challenges of the previous few years, I do know that I’ve nonetheless acquired a lot extra to contribute to F1. Since I used to be a five-year-old child rising up in Nastola, Finland, my focus has been on attaining success within the prime tier of motorsport. I have been lucky to have loved many unimaginable moments in my 12 years of racing in F1 to this point.
“As I return to the place the place so lots of these moments had been achieved, I am wanting ahead to utilizing all of the data I’ve gained to assist the staff to carry out and progress in the direction of our purpose of preventing for world championships.”
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