Bizarre issue cited for Valtteri Bottas crash that almost changed Baku F1 result

Valtteri Bottas believes his race-ending crash at the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was the result of Cadillac’s systems getting “a bit confused”.

The Finnish driver put his Cadillac into the barrier at Turn 15 on the penultimate lap of last Saturday’s race in Baku.

The race continued, though yellow flags were thrown in the crash area to warn the leaders as they completed their final lap.

While the crash initially looked like a clumsy error from the experienced Valtteri Bottas, he believes a quirk of the 2026 power unit rules ultimately led to his shunt.

“Only the front brakes worked”

Bottas says he ran wide at Turn 1 earlier in that lap, which he thinks led to the Cadillac’s power unit systems getting confused about the distance remaining.

This led to him getting a “huge superclip” into Turn 15, which then meant he didn’t have the braking capability he’d had previously.

“First of all, on the same lap I had a lockup into Turn 1, I went wide,” he explained.

“Then I think the systems got a bit confused because of the extra distance.

“I had a huge superclip into [Turn] 15 and then, when I hit the brakes, only the front brakes worked.

“It was almost like I wasn’t harvesting anymore with the rears, so something [got] a bit confused there.

“We need to have a look at what happened, but it was an odd one because it felt like I lost the rear brakes.

“It felt like I lost the rear [while] harvesting.”

Those yellow flags almost proved costly for Mercedes’ George Russell, who suffered turbolag coming out of the corner having slowed for the caution.

This allowed Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to pressure him all the way to the chequered flag, with the Dutchman just 0.1s behind as they crossed the line.