Why Bottas has the edge over Perez in 2026 F1 return race

The best visualisation of just how different Formula 1 life has become for Valtteri Bottas was formed in 2025 Bahrain pre-season testing, when Motorsport.com found him, wheel gun in hand, in the Mercedes pitbox.

But the Finn wasn’t starting a new role as a mechanic for the Silver Arrows squad; it’s just that as Mercedes’ 2025 test and reserve driver, filming social media skits is part of the requirement. And that’s something that just comes naturally to Bottas.

Think how his laid-back style has won him a legion of fans in his adopted second home in Australia. Or how, these days, he’s always uploading videos of both his sun-soaked cycling exploits or mouth-watering culinary delights to nearly five million Instagram followers.

But it’s not just stockpiling ‘content’ where the quip-tastic 10-time grand prix race winner is of use for the team which he enjoyed the majority of his F1 successes with. And it’s in doing these jobs for Mercedes that Bottas gains a key edge in the race to return to F1 racing action in 2026 – a story that only rarely ends in success for drivers.

“It’s different, of course – my coffee consumption has gone up!” Bottas tells Motorsport.com of his return to reserve driver life for the first time since he held that position at Williams back in 2012.

“There’s a bit more time to hang around and speak to people. [It’s] less stressful, for sure. Less media than as a race driver, but then more events with sponsors and partners. One of my jobs is to do the events, especially evening events, that normally you don’t want to put the drivers into. So, they can put the third driver in there.

“But, yeah, still involved in all the [engineering] meetings.  Still following every session on the intercom and TV. Just to keep up to date in case I’ve got to jump in. And also in general, if I have any ideas or questions or even a driver’s view on certain things, then I speak up.”

At the wet Australian season opener – when Bottas was “following my first grand prix in the garage in the last 12 years” – this included suggesting that Andrea Kimi Antonelli would need to move off-line more regularly to cool his intermediates and indicating the crossover point for moving back off slicks when the rain returned late on in Melbourne.

“It’s quite a big change again from Sauber back to Mercedes,” Bottas explains, sat overlooking the Shanghai paddock pond in the strong late-March Chinese sunshine at F1’s most recent 2025 round.

“Just the quality of engineering and the amount of talented people in one team. There’s still a big difference because it’s a bigger team. Everything just maybe runs a bit smoother because of the bigger capacity and resources, which is something I definitely learned when I came to Mercedes for the first time.

“But apart from that, like no big surprises [being back]. Everything is pretty much as I expected. Australia actually went better than I thought. It was ok, but it definitely made me miss racing.

“When we signed with Mercedes [just before Christmas after the 2024 season ended], which was actually quite quickly after the Sauber news, I had time to be ready for this kind of different era or role.

“So, yeah, it’s been fine, it’s just obviously I had to again just accept to myself that, ‘ok, yeah, there’s probably not going to be any racing’ [this year]. Of course, you never know, but I’m actually really thankful to Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team boss] for giving me this opportunity again to be part of a great team, great brand, and I think it’s in a good role.

“And, for me, it’s important to be present, to still keep up to date with what is happening in this sport with a good team, to be able to do some testing. Because I want to be back on the grid. And if I would just disappear somewhere – people tend to forget your name.”

And this is Bottas’s key point in returning to Mercedes away from racing and appearing as its social media presence. By remaining a constant paddock presence, he enhances his chances of getting back on the grid in 2026.

That’s unlikely to be with Mercedes, which has invested much in both George Russell and Antonelli (although both are officially uncontracted beyond 2026) as its current racing line-up. And if Wolff decides to return to trying to woo Max Verstappen out of Red Bull, that reduces Bottas’s already slim chances here even further.

But the 2026 grid is expanding with Cadillac’s coming entry, where it would be logical to expect the newcomer to wish to blend a rookie American or IndyCar driving talent with an experienced F1 hand.

Bottas’s CV fits the mould perfectly, as does ex-Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, who has been talked up by Cadillac director Mario Andretti in recent days.

And there’s a lesson for each of them in the tricky task of earning an F1 return – from the driver who in part ousted Bottas from Sauber for 2025.

Back in 2022, Nico Hulkenberg used his position as Aston Martin super-sub and occasional TV pundit to show important paddock figures that he was still suited to be back racing. Specifically, the German driver badged former Haas team boss Guenther Steiner into being considered for a 2023 race seat at the American squad.

When things became even harder for Mick Schumacher as 2022 unfurled, it was Hulkenberg’s massive F1 experience that Haas wanted. He then leveraged that into becoming a future Audi works driver with a series of stunning performances across 2023 and into last year.

We put this point to Bottas, who agrees that remaining active in the F1 paddock “can make a difference” in the quest to regain a race drive.

“If you’re a driver who’s around versus if you’re a driver who disappears completely, I think it has its positives to be here and to speak to people,” he adds.

“But it’s more I do it for myself. I want to keep up to date what’s happening with the sport. It’s great to be with a great team, to see how they operate, what kind of gains they’re finding and why. Which can also help me, probably, in the future.

“Also, as a reserve, you’ve got to be here because if you get the call, you want to be ready.”

And does Bottas consider Cadillac his best chance to earn that rare F1 return?

“This season will show,” he replies. “We’ve obviously got many rookie drivers and in this sport, you never know. Something can trigger again some changes within different teams and drivers.

“But it’s, for sure, for me, a very interesting option. It wouldn’t be an easy route, but if there’s a clear plan of how to get there, then it could be a really interesting project, which I think experience can help. So, let’s wait and see.

“I know [Cadillac team principal] Graeme Lowdon well. But I don’t think he’s making all the decisions. In the end, they’ve got a big company backing the project. Again, they’ve got a board and all these things, who make decisions or at least influence the decisions as this sport is still a business and there are politics involved. 

“But, yeah, at least he’s seen me driving alongside Zhou [Guanyu, at Sauber with Bottas from 2022-24, with Lowdon the Chinese driver’s manager] and he knows what I can do. He knows my past and my experience.”

When we point out to Bottas that Perez is taking the opposite approach of staying away from the paddock, he’ll only insist his way “doesn’t hurt me – let’s put it that way”.

Finally, there’s how Wolff fits into the Bottas return story. He’s intrinsically linked with the 35-year-old career story, after all – managing him for a decade until he first signed to race for Mercedes in 2017 and overseeing all of his F1 wins.

“He has told me that he would love to see me racing still,” Bottas concludes. “And I think he agreed with me when I told him that I still feel like I’m not done with the sport yet. It’s not the time yet. So, I think he would be happy to see me in a race seat. And of course, if it’s not here, he wouldn’t stand in the way.”