Do Audi Have Eyes On McLaren Talent With Bottas Heading For The Door

Ever since Audi first confirmed that they would be entering the world of Formula One racing in 2026 and would be taking over the existing Sauber team and set up, the high end German based automotive manufacturer have rarely been far from the racing headlines.

Infrastructure investment and development, slowly but surely beginning to assemble the engineering team that will take them forward and who would potentially fill their race seats have all been regular headlines - with a good amount of rumour mill speculation thrown in for good measure.

Many understandably feel that looking to Sauber and their plans for the 2025 race calendar could give some clues as to which way Audi may go when they take full control, and UK sports betting would probably point out in their odds that it is not an illogical train of thought to feel that they may want to trial run a potential driver line up next year to see how people fit in and work together.

Under the existing arrangement with Sauber, Audi F1 are the only team who are non Red Bull related, but are yet to officially confirm next season's drivers, and in recent days there have been claims that they are putting the final touches on a deal to bring in McLaren junior Gabriel Bortoleto to fill one of the seats, but that Valtteri Bottas will now lose his own for the coming 2025 campaign.

The Swiss based team had previously announced the capture of Nico Hulkenberg from Haas back in April of this year, but their plans stalled slightly as they were forced to reassess their second driver options after claimed top targets Carlos Sainz and Esteban Ocon decided to sign for Williams and Haas respectively for the coming campaign. But of course, the rumour mill at different points has favoured the current incumbents Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, as well as Sauber reserve Theo Pourchaire and what appeared to be pretty solid links to Mick Schumacher, Felipe Drugovic, and Franco Colapinto in recent months, and those rumours ultimately seemed to largely go no where.

Should the latest Bottas rumour prove to be true, and they do end up dropping him, people will certainly look at his replacement as the ten time F1 race winner during his time with Mercedes commented at the recent United States Grand Prix that terms had been agreed with Sauber to stay for at least one more season, but that the deal just needed the final sign off by F1 chief Mattia Binotto.

There will be those who wonder what changed, and whether or not his potential replacement was someone they just could not miss out on.

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