Bottas lights up South Korea in a zero‑pod Mercedes as F1 noise returns after 12 years
Valtteri Bottas brought a little bit of F1 theatre back to South Korea at the weekend, sliding a Mercedes W13 around AMG Speedway and reminding 25,000 fans what a modern Grand Prix car does to the senses. For a country that hasn’t heard that sound since 2013, it was a loud, smoky reunion.
Mercedes’ reserve driver took the team’s 2022 “zero‑pod” machine for multiple laps of the 4.5km circuit in Yongin, Gyeonggi-do, before christening the asphalt with donuts at the Peaches Run Universe event. It wasn’t a race weekend, but it had that fizzy, paddock‑on‑tour energy: simulators for the public, helmets and race suits on display, and the kind of crowd you only get when you roll an F1 car out in a place that hasn’t seen one in more than a decade.
“It has been brilliant to bring F1 back to South Korea for the first time in 12 years,” Bottas said via Mercedes. “I remember the passion of the fans from when I raced here back in 2013 but if anything, that fandom has grown since then. The fans were knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and it was such an honour to have so many people here to enjoy the day.”
This wasn’t just any demo car either. The W13 is motorsport folklore now: the elegant, minimalist sidepods that sparked a design arms race, then the brutal return to earth via porpoising. It won only once, with George Russell at Interlagos, and it never raced under Bottas, who had ceded his Mercedes race seat to Russell for 2022 after five seasons alongside Lewis Hamilton. On Sunday, the Finn finally got a taste of the one that got away, sawing at the wheel and letting the V6’s rasp echo off the grandstands as if to say, yes, it’s still a handful.
South Korea’s place in F1 history is short but memorable. Yeongam hosted four Grands Prix from 2010 to 2013; Sebastian Vettel won three of them as Red Bull’s dominance hit full stride. The race slipped from the calendar after that—and despite periodic flirtations, it never returned. Until now, the country hadn’t seen a top‑flight car run on its soil since.
Is a demo run a sign of something more? Not necessarily. But it is a reminder that interest is there—and that the sport’s big teams see value in rekindling relationships. If you’re going to test the water, sending a star name to boil the tyres off a Mercedes is a decent way to start.
For Bottas, it’s the latest beat in a busy second act. After leaving Sauber at the end of last year, he rejoined Mercedes as reserve for 2025 and will step back onto the grid in 2026 with the incoming Cadillac outfit, alongside Sergio Perez. Sunday’s show was a return to a country he raced in as a rookie, a chance to entertain a packed house, and a rare opportunity to play with a car he watched from the outside during the sport’s ground‑effect reset.
And if the W13’s legacy is complicated, it’s also perfect for a day like this. It looks wild, it sounds angry, and it leaves big black signatures on the exit of a hairpin—the sort of calling card that lingers long after the transporter has packed up and gone.
For a few hours in Yongin, South Korea remembered what that feels like. And Bottas, helmet under arm and grin intact, looked like he enjoyed reminding them.
