Valtteri Bottas’ nude calendars are behind him for now but he will remain free to embrace all his unique individuality while at Mercedes.

Having been unable to find a race seat to stay on the grid for this season, Bottas is back at the team where he spent several seasons as a teammate to Lewis Hamilton between 2017 and ’21.

Valtteri Bottas became “who I truly am” following Mercedes departure

Bottas has signed up as reserve driver for the Mercedes team, ready to step in to replace George Russell or Kimi Antonelli should either driver prove unable to take part in a race weekend, while also being a strong safety net for Mercedes should the team’s gamble on Antonelli – a completely unproven rookie – backfire.

The Finn was a solid and dependable performer for Mercedes during his previous tenure with the team, having impressed during a four-season stint at Williams that made him the logical choice for Toto Wolff to pursue for his team when 2016 F1 World Champion Nico Rosberg suddenly retired just days after winning the title.

But Bottas proved unable to be a seriously competitive rival for Hamilton once he’d settled into the team, with the British driver clearly the more consistent and aggressive of the pairing – leading to Hamilton continuing to rack up the titles with ease having faced a much sterner challenge against the headstrong Rosberg.

Bottas’ strength was in his speed and consistency – he racked up a record 103 consecutive Q3 appearances, encompassing the entirety of his Mercedes career – and he duly secured two consecutive runner-up spots in the championship in 2019 and ’20, along with 10 wins and 20 pole positions.

At surface level, all appeared well, but, underneath his calm and measured demeanor, Bottas wasn’t a particularly happy man, as he’s revealed in the years since.

As any sportsperson might, he believed that he could beat anyone in the world – only for that self-confidence to be continuously eroded by Hamilton’s unrelenting domination year after year.

On top of this, an incident of team orders, the infamous “Valtteri, it’s James” radio message at the 2018 Russian Grand Prix while Bottas led Hamilton, showed that even when things went his way, outright success would continue to elude him. Years later, Bottas revealed that the incident gave the Finn reason to consider his future in Formula 1.

“[It was] tough to accept. I was pretty angry,” he revealed on Netflix series Drive to Survive.

“Honestly I was thinking ‘Why do I do this?’ I was thinking of quitting [F1], of giving up. Straight after the race, I said I would not do it again. If your teammate wins and you are second, you feel like you lose.

“I know I’ve been second in the past, but I want to prove I’m not just a No.2. in the team, even though many wouldn’t admit it, maybe unconsciously they have a No.1 and a No.2.”

But Bottas was never able to break the pattern of Hamilton having the upper hand, further adding to a situation he revealed was “exhausting” for him to cope with.

“For such a competitive nature, it was hard to accept,” he told Finnish journalist Maria Veitola about Hamilton’s superiority.

“It was only in the last year [2021] that I could accept that Lewis Hamilton was a better driver.

“I always wondered how I could beat him and win the world championship.

“It was quite an exhausting five years. I wanted to win everything right away, and then when it didn’t happen, it was hard to accept.”

Added to his professional life pressure was a breakdown of his marriage. Bottas had been dating Olympic swimmer Emilia Pikkarainen since 2010, with the couple marrying in 2016. But, at the end of the 2019 season, Bottas and Pikkarainen announced their split with the Finnish driver saying the amicable parting of the ways was down to the “challenges his career and life situation bring”.

But the last few years have seen a very different Valtteri Bottas emerge. The change – a sparkle in his eyes and a wry sense of mischief – became quickly apparent after swapping over to a new team as he took on a long-term project as the team leader for the Alfa Romeo/Sauber squad.

Perennial midfielders, the competitive situation Bottas found himself in was very different to what he’d experienced at Mercedes. Immediately, the expectations of slotting in just behind Hamilton and all but matching his relentlessness gave way to simply trying to score points and, ‘if anything better is on the table, that would be simply fantastic Valtteri, thank you’.

“It’s a different atmosphere. I mean, for sure, a big part of it is when you’re fighting for the title, then obviously pressure builds up and so on, but it’s a smaller team as well,” Bottas mused to media, including PlanetF1.com following his switch.

A key difference that allowed Bottas to feel more relaxed was that he was given a long-term deal – three seasons, to be exact – which allowed him to stop worrying quite so much weekend-on-weekend as he fought for single-year extensions at Mercedes.

“I think, for me, probably one of the big things why maybe I feel more relaxed is the future is a bit more solid for the years to come than what it was before,” he said.

“I feel like I can truly be who I am. For sure, there’s a bit of a difference [compared to Mercedes]. I think company policies might be a bit different in different workplaces, let’s say, and so on. And some things might be a bit more restricted.”

An example of this was in Bottas growing out his hair. Usually playing it safe with a cool and crisp razored style, Bottas’ hairstyle began to hint at him being in a very different headspace to where he had been as it first became somewhat wild and untamed before the Finn headed to the barbers at the end of 2022 to reveal his grand plan.

Unveiling a moustache and a so-uncool-it’s-cool mullet, Bottas was almost unrecognisable from the driver who departed Mercedes at the end of ’21 as he shared images of himself resplendent in a Victoria Bitter lager vest and matching shorts.

The typical Australian ‘bogan’ look, complete with a now peroxide-bleached shoulder-length mullet, is one Bottas has embraced in the years since, with the once-introverted Finn embracing social media to release wild and wacky social media videos with the help of his now long-term girlfriend Tiffany Cromwell. The Australian cyclist has brought out a very different Bottas as his enjoyment of all things the continent has to offer has seen him crowned an ‘honorary Australian’.

As a recent example of Bottas’ wackier side, check out his recent tone-deaf rendition of a duet with Cromwell to advertise their drinks venture. This is just one example of Bottas’ personality shining through, with the Finn willing to reveal more of himself in recent years – and that’s not just meant metaphorically.

Appearing on Drive to Survive in Season 3, the unexpected sight of Bottas’ bare bottom in a sauna scene – and the good-natured way most of the public responded to it – led the Finn to lean into more displays of nudity, primarily in aid of charities for men’s health and prostate cancer awareness.

In mid-2022, he shared a truly unique picture – for a modern-day F1 driver – by showing himself swimming nude in a river. Last year, Bottas also released a ‘Bottass’ calendar for charity, showcasing 13 images of himself and his bottom.

The fun Bottas was having was tempered by his reveal that he suffered from significant mental health issues over a decade ago, coinciding with the severe weight restrictions on drivers that forced them to be as light as possible – a situation which put some of the taller drivers into the range of particularly unhealthy relationships with food.

Bottas believes that he suffered from an eating disorder in the early years of his F1 career, and even revealed that, at one point, he was ambivalent about the thoughts of his plane crashing.

10 years on from those thoughts, and having learned not to take himself or life as seriously as he had been, Bottas paid tribute to the effect Cromwell has had on his mentality in bringing out a more extroverted, happier, and healthier person.

“For sure, she’s an Aussie and, I would say, a free spirit as a person who likes to live in the moment and do things that make her happy. This kind of mindset,” he said.

“So yeah, she’s the person who lives with me, so it’s always a big, big impact. She’s still trying to make me an Aussie and it’s getting there step by step.

“I found a new partner and gained more experience. I try not to take things too seriously anymore.

“I’ve actually always enjoyed life, even if I was a bit more reserved or stressed. Maybe I’m a bit more relaxed now and a bit more open to showing this side of myself.”

Is returning to the Mercedes environment the right move for Valtteri Bottas?

With the move to a very different environment at Sauber, Bottas did theorise that some of his exploits might “not have been allowed” while at Mercedes, such as growing out his now beloved mullet.

It’s clear that the Finn is in a much happier place in his life now than he was five years ago, and, with the help of his girlfriend, has blossomed into the person that he felt he had to hide away as a younger man.

With Bottas returning to Mercedes, a team that perhaps is more image-conscious than the Sauber team he was with, just what demands might the team make of his behaviour and style, and is Bottas at risk of going back down into a darker headspace from which he only emerged in recent years?

Speaking at the Autosport Awards last week, team boss Toto Wolff confirmed to RacingNews365 that the mullet can stay – but the infamous nude calendar won’t be permitted.

“We are Mercedes, so maybe the nude calendar is not on anymore,” he said, “So we’ve said that, but we need to keep him authentic. If he wants to keep the ugly mullet, then he should!”

Once news of this emerged on social media, it led to many commenters pondering just how much of a muzzle Mercedes might seek to put on Bottas in terms of freedom of expression and his individuality – concerns that are without any foundation.

Upon his return to Mercedes, the only request made of Bottas was to tone down the nudity out of deference to Mercedes’ title sponsor Petronas – a global corporation owned by the Malaysian government.

Out of respect for the cultural norms of Malaysia and the state religion of Islam, Bottas will thus stay covered up while at Mercedes – a polite request that the Finn readily agreed to.

Aside from that, Bottas is free to continue showcasing his truly unique personality without constraint.

As it stands, Bottas is not a race driver for Mercedes and thus is not facing the same psychological pressures he was under during his previous tenure at the team. It’s a very different arrangement to what he went through circa five years ago when he was expected to provide capable support to Hamilton’s title campaigns.

With Bottas free to be himself, the Finn is fully embracing the challenge – and professional security – ahead of him at Mercedes. Greeted with warmth and enthusiasm by the team at Brackley as he attended the team’s launch of its partnership with Adidas this week, Bottas beamed as he returned to the squad with whom he’s achieved so much success.

His duties this year will include offering advice to Antonelli in the Italian’s rookie year, with Bottas showing a willingness to ‘mentor’ the young Zhou Guanyu in what was a particularly harmonious teammate partnership over the past three years – completely in keeping with Bottas’ friendly and warm character.

Bottas has explained he’s not quite ready to close the door on F1 as he chases a return to the grid next season – Mercedes may be unlikely, but it can’t be ruled out completely as a possibility to allow him to rebuild. But, for now, it appears that anything Bottas can get will be a bonus to what has already been a more successful career than most get and, perhaps unlike what he thought a decade ago, it appears the Finn is completely at peace with that.

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