Bottas: Russell Imola F1 incident was “completely his fault”

Valtteri Bottas has put 100 percent of the blame on George Russell for their race-ending incident in the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Bottas and Russell collided while battling for ninth place on Lap 31 at Imola.

Russell was attempting an overtake on Bottas down the main straight and moved to the right of the Finn to try and get the move done.

In doing so, the Williams driver touched the white line, causing him to lose control and crash into Bottas’ Mercedes.

Both drivers were understandably annoyed after the incident, with Russell going over to Bottas while the Finn was still in his stricken car. 

Reflecting on the incident with Russell, Bottas said: “Yeah, it was quite a big one, quite high speed. Obviously could have been a lot worse, but I’m OK.

“I think that lap, or just before, the DRS was again available for people. I was still struggling with the warm-up of the tyres, with the dry tyres. Then George could close, he obviously went for an overtake in a place there is pretty much only one dry line. I’ve seen the replay, there was definitely space for two cars all the time.

“I don’t know what he was [talking] about, trying to say something. It was completely his fault, quite disappointing.”

Bottas confirmed he couldn’t hear what Russell said when the Williams driver comforted him straight after the incident.

Even without the crash with Russell, Bottas was enduring a miserable weekend up until that point and had been lapped by race leader Max Verstappen.

“Very disappointing, yes,” Bottas added. “No points from today and it was a struggle, even until the crash. Nobody knows what still could have been possible. But we need to take learnings from this week and move on.”