Valtteri Bottas strips naked for 2024 calendar as F1 fans go wild

30 November 2023 , 20:40

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Valtteri Bottas has raised a huge cash sum for charity (Image: HOCH ZWEI/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

F1 racer Valtteri Bottas has raised a six-figure sum for charity by stripping naked for an X-rated calendar.

The Finn is best known for his racing as Lewis Hamilton's former team-mate at Mercedes and a current driver for Alfa Romeo. But he's also been using his profile away from the Formula 1 world to make a huge difference.

He has been selling 2024 calendars featuring a new photo every month of himself with his bare backside on show in different scenarios. The calendar, aptly named "Bottass", has sold out online.

For each calendar sold, £4.31 went straight to prostate cancer charity Movember. The initial run of 10,000 copies sold out rapidly and more were printed, which also flew off the shelves swiftly.

And Bottas has now revealed how much has been raised by those who bought the unique piece of merchandise. "Thank you so much for all the support in November," he wrote on social media.

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"With the donations and with the calendars we have together raised a substantial amount for @Movember - meaning WE have really helped and will effect and save many people's lives. Final figures to be calculated in the next days, but we are talking around $150k of funds raised!"

At the current exchange rate, it means around £119k raised for Movember, which works to help people with and raise awareness of men's health issues such as prostate cancer and male suicide.

Bottas previously went viral after posting a photo on social media of himself swimming in a stream with his bottom on show, taken by his partner Tiffany Cromwell. Photographer Paul Ripke was hired to take more such snaps of the Finn to fill the calendar.

He said earlier this month: "I did get a message from my mum asking, 'What is this?' She doesn't really understand English that well, and she had seen some videos I had posted. She was quite confused and protective, asking me, 'Are you sure that’s the path you want to go'. So I explained the charity thing, and it's fine.

"Everything has been positive. I have had questions, people asking me, 'Why did you do that? Why do you want to show your ass?' But then when I explained the charity aspect, people got it, and we had so much fun, as you can imagine, taking those pictures."

Daniel Moxon