Valtteri Bottas on Joining a Rookie Team & What the Opposite of F1 Is

It’s been a decade since an all-new team joined Formula 1 and over two decades since a works team jumped onto the grid. Now, at the zenith of F1’s popularity, Cadillac has entered the chat with a driver lineup that far exceeds what they could have even hoped to solidify.

For the vast majority of drivers, winning isn’t a reality. In fact, from the current lineup of 22 of the world's best drivers, just 12 have ever stood on the top step of the podium. And a few of those only once.

For a brand like Cadillac to lock down not just one, but two, race-winning drivers is an extreme rarity. Due to an unusual shuffling of drivers, both 10-time race winner Valtteri Bottas and 6-time race winner Sergio Perez are a part of the team at Cadillac.

Just ahead of what proved to be an exceptionally good race weekend at the Canadian GP, I had a chance to hear what Cadillac F1 driver Valtteri Bottas had to say about joining a brand new team, what it's like to drive a Cadillac road car, and how he's able to unwind by doing the exact opposite of Formula 1.

“It’s definitely a different experience. You’re not walking into an established, well-oiled machine,” he says.

And Bottas knows exactly what that’s like. He raced for five seasons as Lewis Hamilton’s wingman on the powerhouse Mercedes works team. He’s also seen the other side of the grid on backmarkers like Sauber and a solid mid-field Williams team back in 2013 through 2016.

“You are walking into something new, not just for the driver but for every mechanic, every engineer, every member of the team. There’s just a different feeling. A different excitement.”

And with over 250 races under his belt and 13 years in the sport, Bottas has plenty to share.

“I think for me at this stage in my career, it’s the perfect place to be to give my experience from three different teams I’ve driven in the past and put that to good use. Because in the end, this phase is like problem solving.”

"In this sport, you can imagine technically there are so many things you can improve and you can do better, and that’s kind of my job at the moment. It’s to try and debug things.”

“We’ll give our feedback on how we feel we can be faster, how the car balance can be better in this corner, and how I feel like I can get more confidence in the car.”

While Cadillac may be at the far end of the grid, the team has settled in and the next phase of this project is starting to emerge.

“From problem solving we are now transitioning to finding more performance," he says.

As a seasoned pro, Bottas laughs that he’s had a few good Sunday nights in Montreal in the past. “But now I’ve learned,” he says. Now he appreciates a bit more balance in his life. An avid on- and off-road cycling enthusiast, he says he enjoys it, “because it’s quite the opposite of Formula 1.”

“Formula 1 is noisy, there’s a lot of people, there’s politics, and technology plays a big part," he says. "In cycling it’s you and your bike. And its mostly about you. You’re the engine. There’s no politics, really. At least in the events I do. That’s why it’s refreshing.”

Cadillac will obviously be leveraging the marketing value of F1 to promote its products and that’s not hard to do. “I drove it three weeks ago,” he says, pointing to the CT5-V Blackwing F1 Collector’s Series special edition sitting to his right. “It’s mad. That shouldn’t be road legal.”

It’s no secret that Cadillac would like an American driver on its team in the future. They’ve even gone so far as to hire IndyCar race winner Colton Herta, who they’ve dropped into the Hitech F2 program (with support from Cadillac) in order to give him an experience in the formula world and visit many of the tracks he’d drive on as a F1 driver.

Despite Herta’s impressive racing pedigree, he’s finding the competition level in F2 to be legitimate. So while he learns the ropes there, Bottas and team made Perez are helping build the baseline of a future team.

“Long may the journey continue and the success will come eventually,” he says. “And we’ll obviously try to make it as fast as we can.”

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