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The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas is leaving Mercedes at the end of the season and replacing the retiring Kimi Raikkonen at Alfa Romeo.
The Alfa Romeo team said Monday that Bottas had signed a multi-year deal, paving the way for George Russell to replace Bottas at Mercedes.
For Bottas, it is a sad end to a Mercedes career that never really took off after he replaced the then-world champion Nico Rosberg in 2017.
Although he won four races into his Mercedes career with victory at the Russian GP, the 32-year-old Finnish driver never mounted a serious title challenge the way Rosberg did in 2014 and 2016.
Bottas claimed the last of his nine victories at the Russian GP in September last year -- ending a streak of 20 races without a win.
He finished a dismal fifth overall after failing to win a race in 2018 and ended that season with four straight fifth-place finishes.
Bottas is third overall this year but nearly 100 points behind teammate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's Max Verstappen after 13 races.
He will now relaunch his career at a team where he will be under much less pressure.
"A new chapter in my racing career is opening," Bottas said. "I am relishing the opportunity to help lead the team forward up the grid, especially with the new regulations in 2022 giving the team a chance to make a leap in performance."
Although he never hit the heights Rosberg did, his relationship with Hamilton was largely a positive one. This proved a welcome relief to Mercedes, after Hamilton and Rosberg fell out and openly feuded in their last two seasons together.
"It has been a privilege and a great sporting challenge to work with Lewis, and the harmony in our relationship played a big part in the constructors' championships we won," Bottas said. "I would like to thank (head of motorsport) Toto (Wolff) and the team for the respect in how we took the decision together."
Wolff praised Bottas for his efforts in helping the team secure four straight drivers' and constructors' titles since he joined. Wolff had little time to react when Rosberg stunned F1 by retiring days after his 2016 title, forcing Wolff to move fast to sign Bottas from Williams.
"Valtteri has done a fantastic job and he has made an essential contribution to our success and to our growth," Wolff said. "He would absolutely have deserved to stay with the team, and I am pleased that he has been able to choose an exciting challenge with Alfa next year."
Alfa Romeo team principal Frederic Vasseur knows Bottas well, having worked with him in the F3 and GP3 categories.
"The multi-year deal bringing him to us gives both Valtteri and the team the stability we need to build," Vasseur said. "We are excited for what the future holds in store."
Russell has excelled for Williams in a much slower car, showing all his ability with a stunning second place in qualifying at the rain-drenched Belgian GP two races ago. He finished second in that shortened race.
Before that race, Russell had been informed he had a seat at Mercedes in 2022, although he could not yet say so.
He has driven once before for Mercedes.
Russell replaced Hamilton at the Sakhir GP last December when the British driver had the coronavirus, and qualified in an impressive second place behind Bottas despite having little time to adjust to the car.
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. said Thursday it's ready to sign on to the grocery code of conduct, paving the way for an agreement that's been years in the making.
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
A father has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 34-year-old daughter in southern Quebec.
The province’s health minister and solicitor general are urging Toronto to rescind its request to decriminalize simple possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, calling the proposal 'misguided' and 'disastrous.'
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.