“Michael Andretti spotted visiting the Sauber factory” – Who will be Valtteri Bottas’ teammate if Alfa Romeo is sold to the American team?

Michael Andretti was recently seen at the Alfa Romeo factory suggesting that the take-over deal between the two will be announced shortly. 

There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the future of Alfa Romeo in Formula 1. In July, the team announced that the name would be staying in the sport for the foreseeable future after agreeing to a multi-year deal with Sauber.

However, Sauber seems to be close to selling the team over to the famous Andretti name. Michael is the son of former F1 World Champion, Mario Andretti. The former also had a stint in F1 but is mainly known for spearheading the Andretti team to success in motorsports in the US.

The only empty seat in F1 for the 2022 season belongs to the Zurich-based team. Guanyu Zhou, who sits 2nd in the Formula 2 Championship has been heavily linked to partner Valtteri Bottas in that team next year.

The involvement of the Andretti name in the equation makes things a bit more complicated.

Also read: “We can’t predict today who will be champion” – Alfa Romeo willing to pay the waiting game to decide the 2022 F1 seat between F2 title contenders Oscar Piastri and Guanyu Zhou

Young American driver Colton Herta was recently linked to partner Bottas at Alfa Romeo

Zhou was hailed as a successor to Antonio Giovinazzi, but the bag of cash which the Chinese driver was going to bring seems irrelevant with the Americans taking over now.

Valtteri Bottas’ move to the team was confirmed last month. The question as to who will partner him, however, remains unanswered. It is evident that they would want an American driver to partner Bottas. But, who?

Colton Herta is one of the potential candidates for the seat. The young IndyCar driver is the youngest to ever win a race in the series.

“It would be awesome to see an American driver somewhere in there with a representative team. I see a lot of desire there. In America, you can be quite satisfied here with IndyCar or NASCAR or whatever”. Mario Andretti recently said in an Interview.

“But I see clearly with Colton. Formula 1 is in his mind, very strongly and I think timing is good for him. Again, we’ll see what happens but there’s some action going on on that front.”

This takeover would mean the end of the historic Sauber name in F1 for now.  It will however be replaced by another historic name in the form of Andretti.