To support Nico Hülkenberg at Sauber next year and with Audi from 2026, Mattia Binotto must decide between the experience of Valtteri Bottas and two younger candidates with future potential.
The field is almost complete for next season, the only uncertainties concerning the second wheel at Sauber/Audi and the distribution of the line-up of the Red Bull teams.
In the world champion team, everything will depend on the behavior of Sergio Pérez and Liam Lawson during the last Grands Prix, with Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda already confirmed for 2025.
If the Mexican was finally sidelined, it is a safe bet that Lawson would be promoted (provided he had taken over Tsunoda at the end of the season) and the young Frenchman Isack Hadjar elevated to the rank of starter for the Racing Bulls team .
Experience or youth
For the Swiss team, the dilemma is very different and the way in which it is resolved will say a lot about Audi’s ambitions in the medium term. The easy solution is perhaps to extend Bottas for a year for a harmonious integration of Hülkenberg before displaying the Audi flag.
Operations director Mattia Binotto could also bank on the future by betting on youth, either by turning to the promising rookie Franco Colapinto (21 years old) who impresses for his debut at Williams, or by hiring the teenager Gabriel Bortoleto (19 years old), sensational leader of the Formula 2 championship (photo above).
The Argentinian still has six Grands Prix to show off his qualities while the Brazilian can still take the FIA F2 crown in Abu Dhabi which would make him a double champion of F3 then F2 as a rookie, a performance that only Oscar Piastri , George Russell and Charles Leclerc have achieved to varying degrees in recent years.
Complicated contractual links
The first named is naturally under contract with Williams, but team principal James Vowles has already declared that he is ready to release him for a starting place elsewhere because otherwise he would remain a reserve at Grove. It would be hard to see him, in fact, returning to F2 where he would have everything to lose.
As for the second, he is McLaren’s protégé and his management is managed by A14, Fernando Alonso’s agency. As there will be no free place at Woking in the next two or three years, McLaren would consider a loan of Bortoleto to Sauber/Audi while maintaining links to recall him if necessary.
Binotto will therefore have to position himself, knowing that Mick Schumacher’s candidacy would not have been accepted. Bottas is asking for 2025, even if he would like a two-year contract, while the two young talents are not completely free. However, it is likely that Audi will require an exclusive contract with its future recruit. There is no doubt that the negotiations will continue until the end of the season as there is no rush and it is therefore “urgent to wait”, as the saying goes…
