Valtteri Bottas feels he has nothing to prove regarding his speed and motivation to the newly Audi-owned Sauber team regarding securing a cockpit for 2025.
With Nico Hulkenberg already now committed to Sauber for the upcoming years, and the possibility of Carlos Sainz joining after a reported lucrative offer, Bottas might find himself without a seat.
"That's what motorsport is like," the Finn was quoted by the Japanese source as-web.jp. "Sometimes it's difficult to show what you're capable of."
Currently, while Audi's future prospects with Sauber appear promising, the team is facing performance challenges and has not yet resolved a technical issue affecting their pitstops throughout 2024.
Recently, Bottas has been relatively quiet during the driver transfer speculation 'silly season' but has started to be associated with potential moves to either Haas or Alpine.
"I think people who look into the details and try to see the performance of each driver understand what they're seeing," he stated. "But it's also true that when you're not scoring points, you're almost hidden in a way."
"I feel like I've had some good qualifying sessions and races so far, but they've always been compromised. Something always happened, whether it was a pitstop or not. All I can do is give the best performance I can," Bottas continued.
Away from the Formula 1 circuits, Bottas is enjoying life, having qualified for this year's UCI Gravel World Championships due to his cycling enthusiasm.
In Formula 1, he insisted, "All I can do is show my ability, but I've been feeling good lately, so I hope the right people are watching."
"They certainly know what I'm doing," he added when asked if Audi and Sauber were aware of his efforts. "Recently I did two days of non-stop testing in Japan, covered five race distances, flew out at night and went straight into the simulator the correlation work."
"So yes, they know."
Regarding the ongoing speculation and his future, Bottas concluded, "I think it will sort itself out in the next few weeks."
"We are working on it and for sure negotiations have started, so it should be an interesting few weeks ahead. All the options are 100 percent F1."
