Pickled Eggs and Bourbon With Valtteri Bottas in Austin
In Austin for the United States Grand Prix, the Cadillac Formula 1 driver talks whiskey and the team’s first season on the grid
“I was excited when I learned about it, because I’m actually a whiskey guy,” Valtteri Bottas told us of Jim Beam signing on as the Cadillac Formula 1 Team’s spirits partner. We sat down with him in Austin during United States Grand Prix weekend, a race he has been coming to for 13 years. The conversation opened on Nickel City, the East Side bar he visits every year, and its big jar of pickled eggs, which he loves.
Backed by TWG Motorsports and General Motors, Cadillac arrived this year as Formula 1’s 11th team and the first all-new entry since Haas joined in 2016. The team is headquartered in Fishers, Indiana, outside Indianapolis, with a UK base beside Silverstone and an in-progress power unit facility near GM’s technical center in Charlotte, North Carolina. It runs Ferrari power units for now, with its own GM engine slated for 2029. Graeme Lowdon, who led Marussia into the sport, is team principal, and Bottas shares the garage with Sergio Pérez, giving the team 527 Grand Prix starts between its two drivers.
Bottas likes a glass of whiskey at the end of a dinner, and earlier this year he toured the Jim Beam distillery in Kentucky. “Cadillac and Jim Beam, they’re both two iconic American brands, so it really, really fits,” he said. “The branding, the style of Jim Beam, the things they do, it just works.”
He also knew the story that ties the two names together: “Mr. Jim Beam himself, back in the day, driving his Cadillac and carrying his yeast.” According to the brand, Beam drove a jar of his yeast home in his Cadillac to keep the strain safe, and it still shapes the bourbon’s flavor. Fred Noe, the distillery’s seventh-generation master distiller, drives a Cadillac today in tribute.
Cadillac has leaned into its American roots all season. Its first livery debuted in a Super Bowl ad in February. The car is the MAC-26, named for Mario Andretti, the 1978 world champion. Special liveries followed in Miami and at Silverstone, where the British Grand Prix design marked 250 years of American independence.
Bottas keeps his whiskey for the quiet stretches of the year. “In my life, there’s a lot of these contrasts, because, you know, these weekends, they’re so hectic, so busy, noisy,” he said. “And then I always find out that I’m searching for the opposite when I have my time off, so I try to wind down, try to go to the nature and maybe have a glass of Jim Beam by myself.”
If Jim Beam bottled his driving, Bottas would want it “smooth, resilient and fast.” Bottas has 10 Grand Prix wins and returned to a race seat this year with Cadillac after a season as Mercedes’ reserve.
A long career has shown him how much of the job happens away from the car. “As a kid when I was actually dreaming to become a Formula 1 driver, I only thought it’s just, yeah, you go to the races, you drive your car and that’s the main thing,” he said. “But I’ve learned that the main thing is actually everything else. The driving part is, time-wise, the smallest thing we do. The amount of technical meetings, the other meetings, fan meetings, all these things, I had no idea. But I’m not complaining.” Formula 1 has taught him a lot about himself too, he added, through the ups and downs and the constant travel.
“It’s the vibe in the town, the people,” he said of Austin. “It’s definitely a bit weird, but there’s so much to do, so much to offer when it comes to the food.” He rides his bike a lot here, and he likes the routes once he gets out of town. “Every year it just keeps changing,” he said. “It’s like a different town from back then.” He tries to find somewhere new on each visit, and his partner, the Australian cyclist Tiffany Cromwell, handles the restaurant bookings. “The live music is really cool,” he said. “I tried to avoid it before the race, but maybe tomorrow night I can go out.”
For Bottas, being there from day one already means something. “Already I can be proud of being part of this team from the beginning, from the very start and part of creating this team on the very beginning of this journey,” he said. “We were not here to be last. We wanted to eventually win races. That might take some time. But I hope people remember that I’m one of the OGs at the Cadillac F1 team.” He was, he added, the first driver to sign.
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