Valtteri Bottas has curated a unique personal style.
Valtteri Bottas has confirmed that he is free of any commercial or corporate image limitations with Cadillac F1.
The Finn has signed on to be one of the all-new team’s foundation drivers, alongside Sergio Perez, ending a 12-month racing hiatus.
No corporate image concerns for Valtteri Bottas
A 10-time grand prix winner, Bottas was always a front-running candidate for a Cadillac seat.
During a five-year spell with Mercedes, he helped the Brackley organisation chalk up the Constructors’ Championship in each season he drove for the squad.
Upon switching to Sauber for 2022, Bottas began to redefine his public image, adopting the ‘Australian bogan’ style, a number of commercial relationships, and a far more relaxed approach to social media.
That development came once he was free from the Mercedes corporate image, where he maintained a very steady, clean-cut persona.
Bottas’ reinvention has made him something of a cult figure, one that will not be tamed upon his arrival at Cadillac next season.
Speaking as his future was confirmed, the 36-year-old confirmed there would be no change in his image, despite the mullet having temporarily disappeared.
“I’ve still got a mullet,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com.
“Actually, it was a bit of an accident. Four weeks ago I went to a barber in Monaco, and turns out they can’t really do good mullets in Monaco, so they cut it too short. But it’s still there.
“The style is still there, and it always grows back. So don’t worry, the mullet is not going anywhere. No restrictions on that.”
The Cadillac F1 team is owned by Dan Towriss, with ex-Manor sporting director Graeme Lowdon at the helm as team principal.
While carrying Cadillac branding, the operation is otherwise the Andretti Global effort that was initially rejected by Formula One Management early last year.
That decision triggered a protracted sequence of events that saw a United States Department of Justice investigation launched into the matter, Michael Andretti stepping aside, and Greg Maffei leaving as CEO of Liberty Media after 18 years in the job.
The upshot was that the project, under the Cadillac moniker, will be welcomed onto the grid for the F1 2026 season.
In preparation for that, the squad has been feverishly working to build up its factory sites, staff, and begin design and development work for next year. It has already produced a chassis for crash test purposes.
However, it is under no illusion as to the scale of the task ahead, with Bottas and Perez signed both for their speed but also their experience.
“The work with the drivers starts immediately,” Lowdon said.
“Obviously, Valtteri has got commitments to Mercedes, which are ongoing, and that’s a bit different with Checo [Perez].
“We are already simulating race events. So the next one that we’re doing is Monza, and we simulate it as if it is a complete race, from start to finish with full integration of everybody in everybody in the team.
“We’ve got a very clear plan in our build up to Melbourne next year.
“It doesn’t involve just simulating races, which is really, really important. The last one we simulated, we probably had 50 or 60 engineering people fully involved over the whole weekend, both in the UK and the US all getting used to working with each other.
“We need to be in a position that, when we get to Melbourne, we’re not in a position where people are hearing voices for the first time, or working with each other for the first time.
“We just have a plan to steadily build up so that when we get to Melbourne, we hit the ground running. And the drivers themselves play such an important part in it.”
