Valtteri Bottas
Valtteri Bottas (L) wants to remain teammates with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes in 2019. In this picture, Pole position qualifier Hamilton of Great Britain and Mercedes GP and second place qualifier and teammate Bottas of Finland and Mercedes GP wave to the crowd during qualifying for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo, Spain, May 12, 2018. Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team driver Valtteri Bottas has indicated he wants to sign a two-year deal at the least when he puts pen-to-paper on his next contract, which he hopes will be with his current employers.

The Finn joined the Silver Arrows team from Williams prior to the start of the 2017 campaign and was handed a one-year deal. After he impressed sufficiently in his debut season, he was handed another year’s extension for the 2018 campaign.

He will again be a free agent at the end of the current campaign with the Mercedes team yet to decide on Lewis Hamilton’s teammate for next season. The British driver is also out of contract at the end of the season, but Mercedes chief Toto Wolff made it clear the team do not want to lose him and he is expected to agree a bumper new deal sooner rather than later.

But Bottas, on the other hand, is not certain of a place with the team in 2019 after Wolff revealed the group will make a decision on their second driver in the summer. The former Williams driver has the boss’ backing especially after his performances in the first five races this season.

There also other drivers in the running for a race seat in 2019 with two of them being part of the Mercedes young drivers program – Esteban Ocon of Force India and George Russell, who drives in GP2. The other is Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, who is also out of contract, and is looking to join a team that can provide him with a title winning car.

Bottas wants to stay with Mercedes beyond the current campaign and is confident if his performances at the start of the campaign carry on into the rest of the campaign, he will be handed a new deal.

However, he is hoping it will not again be a one-year offer as he is keen to secure his long-term future in the sport. The team and the driver are yet to speak over an extension, but will begin later in the year.

"I would like to stay with this team, hopefully for a long time," Bottas told Motorsport. "That is my target. As long as I keep performing like I've been performing this year so far, naturally it should be OK, all good."

"I always kind of had one-year deals, so I would naturally like to know at least for the next two years what I'm going to do. ... We speak a lot," the Finn added. "We are very open always about my performance, about the car performance. We haven't yet talked anything about next year, we think it's still a bit early."

Mercedes recorded their first 1-2 finish of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix. It was the first time this season the reigning champions looked like the best team on the grid after having played second fiddle to Ferrari and Red Bull Racing in the opening four races of the season. The sixth race of the campaign will see the teams head to the unique Monaco Grand Prix, which gets underway May 27.

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