Sauber reportedly set to offload both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu ahead of 2025 season

Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guyanu managed a P14 and P15 finish at the Australian GP.

Sauber reportedly set to offload both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu ahead of 2025 season

Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu (Via: Imago)

Sauber is yet to score maiden points in the ongoing 2024 F1 season. Moreover, the team sits on the bottom edges of the constructors’ standings ahead of the woeful Alpine. This has urged the team CEO, Andreas Seidl, to take matters into his own hands and look for potential replacements for Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu in the driver market.

Sauber has finished on the outer edges of the top 10 twice in the three races so far. Zhou Guanyu came close in Bahrain to score a point but finished mere seconds behind the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll.

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On the other end of the garage, Valtteri Bottas was on track to score points in Australia but met the fate of a botched pitstop, which threw him out of contention. Despite the driver’s utmost efforts to score points, Andreas Seidl is keen on expanding his scope before the Audi takeover.

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According to Motorsports magazine, the Hinwil-based team will continue to explore its options in the coming months. This could be an alarming wake-up call for the Sauber duo, they will be required to ramp up their performances significantly to save their dwindling F1 careers.

Valtteri Bottas ‘frustrated’ after missing out on points at the Australian GP

With Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, out of the race in Melbourne, the game was on for the lower midfield teams to score maiden points at the 58-lap event. Moreover, the Red Bull junior team, VCARB was able to score points at the hands of Yuki Tsunoda, the Japanese took full advantage of the opportunity at the Australian GP.

Valtteri Bottas
Valtteri Bottas (Via: Imago)

During post-race interviews, Bottas did not hide his frustration of losing out on the chance to score points.

It’s frustrating because I think we had good pace and a good start. We should have ideally scored points with the performance we had, but we obviously haven’t the issues yet... A 30-second pit stop is not really acceptable, but we’re working on it.
Valtteri Bottas said in an interview with formula1.uno

The Stake F1 team was not able to replicate VCARB’s efforts, as they had an insanely long pitstop for the Finn. This threw them out of contention and promoted Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo ahead of them in the standings.

Despite the setbacks, Sauber would like to challenge for points at next month’s Japanese GP. Bottas has a win under his belt at Suzuka and thus, would like to utilize his experience to bring some points to the Stake F1 team. 2024 is a crucial year for the former 10-time Grand Prix winner.

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