Valtteri Bottas makes key Audi F1 admission with Sauber rock bottom

Valtteri Bottas conceded focus on Audi’s impending arrival has led to compromises to the team’s current performance with Stake the only constructor yet to score a point.

Saturday in Zandvoort saw yet more disappointment for Stake who were the only outfit to lose both drivers in Q1 and it is just another part of what has been a miserable campaign.

Valtteri Bottas concedes Audi F1 distraction

With plenty of focus on Audi, who will take over the team from 2026, Stake’s plight has gone largely unnoticed despite the fact they look likely to be the first constructor to fail to score a point in an entire season since 2020.

Preventing that looks unlikely to happen this weekend with the C44 again proving itself the worst car on the grid and when asked by PlanetF1.com if there was too much focus on Audi, Bottas conceded it had led to “compromises”.

“I mean, for sure, the focus is here and now, but also in the future,” he said. “So it’s always about compromises and we’ve had recent changes, again, in the team, so things will just take a bit of time to settle.”

Those changes include CEO Andreas Seidl and general representative Oliver Hoffmann being sacked after a reported power struggle while former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto stepped in to replace them. The latest hire saw Jonathan Wheatley announce his departure from his Red Bull sporting director role to become team principal in Switzerland.

“It’s not the easy times at the moment and we all know that but the future for sure is looking better,” Bottas said. “In this sport, there’s always a chance. So that needs to be the target, but it won’t be easy.

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“We are lacking a little bit of pace here [in Zandvoort]. That’s a fact, and overtaking is not easy, but we never know in this sport, so we don’t give up.”

Bottas suggested the wind at the Zandvoort circuit affected them more than it did their rivals.

“When the wind picked up again for the qualifying, it just felt, I don’t know, for us, maybe even more difficult than for some other cars,” the Finn said.

“When you push the limit, it is always on the edge, and now it’s even more. It’s just really unpredictable at the moment, which is obviously a big weakness in these conditions, but nevertheless, it was actually smooth qualifying timing wise, just a tiny bit of traffic at the end of the lap. But actually, looking at the times, it would have still been the same [without the traffic].”

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