Valtteri Bottas

Valtteri Bottas, born on 28 August 1989 in Nastola, Finland, began karting at six. Via the Formula Renault series he became the first driver ever to win back-to-back Formula 3 Masters titles in 2009 and 2010, and won the GP3 Series in 2011. As a Williams test driver he made an unusual decision in 2012: instead of racing in a junior series, he completed 15 Friday practice sessions for the team at Grand Prix weekends to make his case for a race seat.

He made his Formula 1 debut for Williams in 2013 and moved up to Mercedes in 2017 as the successor to retiring champion Nico Rosberg. Alongside Lewis Hamilton he won ten races and helped the team to five consecutive Constructors’ Championships, finishing runner-up in the Drivers’ standings in 2019 and 2020. In 2018, however, he went winless and set an unwanted record of seven runner-up finishes without a win, a season he later described as the time he “lost the joy of Formula 1.”

After moving to Alfa Romeo and then Sauber (2022-2024), the big results dried up, and in 2024 he finished a season without scoring a point for the first time in his career. Bottas still holds the record for the most career points without a world title. In 2025 he returned to Mercedes as reserve driver, before being unveiled that August alongside Sergio Pérez as the first driver pairing for the new Cadillac team’s 2026 season, the first Formula 1 team backed by a US manufacturer in decades.

“I appreciate the sport much more now than before,” Bottas said of his year as reserve driver. A committed cyclist, he lives in Monaco and supports prostate cancer awareness, among other causes.