Valtteri Bottas's Dutch Grand Prix record splits neatly in two. There is 2021, and there is everything after it.
Five starts, one podium and fifteen points, every single one of them scored on his first visit. The four after that produced no points, no top ten and two retirements.
The podium on Zandvoort's return
Upon returning to the calendar in 2021 after an interval of 36 years, Bottas was racing in a Mercedes and managed to secure the third position in the qualifying round but finished in third place overall in the race as well after the race's leading positions were taken by Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Fifteen points scored along with the podium position in the new venue is the best achievement for any driver in the series all year, in addition to being the only bright day for Bottas so far at this venue.
The move to Alfa Romeo changed everything. In 2022 he qualified sixteenth and retired with an engine failure, classified nineteenth. In 2023 he started eighteenth and finished fourteenth. In 2024, with the team now running as Sauber, he started sixteenth and finished nineteenth, lapped.
Despite being the same driver who had stood on this podium three years earlier, he was by then in the slowest car on the grid, and Zandvoort is not a circuit that lets a driver hide that.
2026: a return, and a retirement
Bottas returned to the Dutch Grand Prix in 2026 with Cadillac after a year on the sidelines. He qualified twenty first and retired from the race, classified eighteenth.
It extends the pattern that has defined everything after 2021. One podium on his first visit, and four visits since without a point between them.
Valtteri Bottas's Dutch GP record year by year
| Season | Grid | Finish | Points | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3 | P3 | 15 | Mercedes |
| 2022 | 16 | P19 | 0 | Alfa Romeo |
| 2023 | 18 | P14 | 0 | Alfa Romeo |
| 2024 | 16 | P19 | 0 | Sauber |
| 2026 | 21 | P18 | 0 | Cadillac |
A record frozen in 2021
It is quite an achievement for Bottas to have secured a podium finish despite failing to win the race, earn pole position or set a fastest lap time, as it places him among the few lucky drivers to earn a podium at Zandvoort. The case of Valtteri Bottas and his record at the Dutch Grand Prix serves as a case in point about how fast fortunes can change. Third on the podium in 2021, and five years later retiring from twenty first on the grid in a Cadillac, at the same circuit and with the same hands on the wheel.
