Valtteri Bottas appears to have won the race for the last remaining vacancy on the 2025 Formula 1 grid.
Plenty of candidates were in the running to become Nico Hulkenberg’s teammate at Audi-owned Sauber next year - including rookies Gabriel Bortoleto and the impressive new Williams driver Franco Colapinto.
"We’re waiting for Audi or Sauber to come to us and say ’What do you want? What are you interested in?’ Williams boss James Vowles said in Singapore.
It appears, however, that a deal was already done - with Sauber incumbent Bottas, 34.
On Thursday, the Finn had told the media: "I might know a bit more than other people, but let’s just focus on the racing this weekend."
A fierce critic of Sauber simply renewing Bottas’ contract has been Roger Benoit, a veteran journalist for the Swiss newspaper Blick.
He thinks a new one-year deal for Bottas is "cowardly" of the Audi-owned team.
"Do you know that Bottas has signed again for a year?" Benoit quoted an unnamed F1 team boss as asking him in the Singapore paddock on Friday.
Benoit says his paddock source "can be trusted with such indiscretions".
Bottas, who earlier was pushing for more than just a single-year deal, believes he deserves to keep the seat, blaming his anonymous 2024 season on the sluggish neon green car.
"I feel actually I’m driving better than what I did at Mercedes, but obviously it’s not that visible," he said in Singapore.
"I feel like, especially in qualifying this year, I haven’t felt any signs of being worse. If anything, you keep getting better with experience. You gain more consistency, more confidence. You can solve different issues in a different way. You can adapt to the car the more time you spend in the sport."
Benoit said he isn’t sure when Sauber will confirm the news, but Bottas said on Thursday: "There’s a good time between this race and the next one to continue the talks and then we’ll see what happens."