Valtteri Bottas has used the beginning of the Method 1 summer time shutdown to safe qualification for the UCI Gravel World Championship, ending fifth in his age group on the qualifying occasion within the Czech Republic.
The Finnish driver selected to sort out the 131km off-road biking occasion alongside his companion, Olympic bike owner Tiffany Cromwell, whereas the F1 paddock observes its necessary August break. Posting on Instagram, the Cadillac driver joked in regards to the variations between his break and the enjoyable vacation selections of his F1 colleagues.
This adopted a difficult first half of the 2026 season for Bottas. After taking a 12 months out of a full-time F1 seat in 2025, throughout which he served as a reserve driver for Mercedes, the 36-year-old signed with Cadillac alongside former Purple Bull driver Sergio Perez.
The American outfit joined the F1 grid in 2026 because the eleventh staff and has, understandably, been taking time to regulate to the championship.
It presently sits eleventh within the constructors’ championship with no factors, one level behind the struggling Aston Martin. Bottas’s finest grand prix results of the primary half of the season was thirteenth on the Chinese language Grand Prix, and Perez’s finest end was 14th at each the Barcelona-Catalunya and British Grands Prix.
Following his retirement from the Hungarian Grand Prix, Bottas insisted that the staff’s setbacks would make it “stronger for the long run”.
“DNF will not be the easiest way to start out the summer time break, however once more one to study from,” he posted after the race on the Hungaroring. “We’ve come a great distance as a staff in such a short while, and I’m happy with everybody’s laborious work. These defeats will simply make us stronger for the long run.”
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