It was the most talked about incident of an action-packed Formula 1 race at Imola and sparked a war of words, but just🐽 h♈ow costly could Valtteri Bottas and George Russell’s collision end up being for Mercedes?
The pair came together on the approach 🤡to the Tamburello chicane as they fought for ninth position at mid-distance in Sunday’s action-packed Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Russell appeared to put a wheel on the grass as he pulled out to make a move on Bottas’ Mercedes, before losing contro🎶l and spearing into the side of the Finn, sending both drivers off into꧅ not one but two violent impacts with the barriers.
Thankfully, both drivers emerged🌳 the scene of the huge high-speed crash unscathed but they wer൲e left fuming with each other.
Remote video URL
Who was to blame?
In the initial aftermath, Russell stormed over to Bottas’ car to ve🐟nt hi﷽s feelings. Bottas greeted him with an unfavourable gesticulation, to which Russell responded by tapping the Finn on his crash helmet.
Bottas insisted he races with respect as he rejected Russell’s accusations which Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:also dismisse🐭d as “bullshღit”. In a later media session Russell appeared to soften his stance on t꧂he matter having viewed new footage of the accident, admitting Bottas was🤪 “probably not” at fault.
As long as there is no repeat in the future, one isolated&nbsꩵp;incident shouldn't harm R🐈ussell, who is highly thought of at Mercedes.
Bottas doing himself no favours
The accident🐠 somewhat overshadowed what was already a terrible weekend for Bottas, who is hardly covering himself in glory in his bid to retain his seat at Mercedes for 2022.
Bottas struggled for pace when it mattered most in qualifying, leading to him lining up only eighth on the grid. He struggled with tyre warm-up throughout the weekend, something not helped by changing conditi🌸ons and cool temperatures on Sunday.
The Finn’s weekend continued to unravel in the 🗹race as he dropped two positions and fell to 10th early on, before being unabဣle to make an impression on the race as he made slow progress up the order.
Having taken an age to get past Lance Stroll, Bo𝓡ttas was being caught by Russell before the pair collided. Getting wiped out in the collision ultimately saved Bottas the embarrassment of potentially finishing the race behind a Williams on merit.
Bottas failed 🐭to feature in the lead battle in Bahrain and already faces a 28-point deficit to teammate Lewis Hamilton in the world championship after just two rounds🎐.
The damaged Mercedes AMG F1 W12 of Valtteri Bottas (FIN), who crashed out of the race.
Perhaps more worrying 𒈔for Mercedes will be the damage sustained to Bottas’ car, with Wolff fearing that the costs incurred could impact the team’s upgrades and planned development.
Wolff 𝄹war🌄ned that a potential write-off for one of their cars could spell disaster for its development plans amid the new financial regulations introduced for the 2021 season.
“The whole situation is absolutely not amusing for us, to be honest,” Wolff said. “It’s quite a big shunt. Our car is almost a write-off, in a cost-cap environment that is certainly not what we needed and it’s probably going to ꧒limit upgrades that we’re able to do.
“We are very stretched on cost cap and what we always feared is a total write-off of a car. This on💞e is not going to be a total write-off, but almost, and that is not something we really wanted.”
With Mercedes believing it has no strengths over Red Bull this year, any development gains will be crucial with fine margins currently separating F1’s to𓆉p two teams in what is pointing towards being a t💮itanic season-long title fight.
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for mahbx♍.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the spo♊rt.
