At over 300 kilometers per hour, Valtteri Bottas and George Russell had an accident at the Formula 1 race in Imola. The Mercedes and Williams drivers blame each other. RTL expert Nico Hülkenberg makes it clear whose mistake led to the violent departure.
The Tamburello looked like a field of rubble that brought back bad memories. Ayrton Senna had a fatal accident in this corner of the Formula 1 circuit in Imola, Italy, on May 1, 1994. Roland Ratzenberger had died at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari almost 24 hours earlier. And so the team bosses and drivers breathed a sigh of relief when George Russell and Valtteri Bottas climbed out of the wrecks on their own in the 33rd round of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, parts of which were spread over the track and the gravel bed.
At over 300 kilometers per hour, the Williams and the Mercedes had touched each other with serious consequences at the end of the start-finish straight. Russell wanted to pass Bottas to the right on a drying, but still damp track. That in turn jerked slightly to the right, Russell reacted and came with the tires on the wet grass. As a result, he lost control of his car and crashed into Bottas’ side. From that moment on, both were only passengers, to whom nothing worse happened, probably only thanks to the high safety standards – and who were therefore able to argue publicly shortly afterwards about who was to be responsible for this violent accident.
Russell first struggled out of the cockpit, went over to the Mercedes and made his view of things so clear to Bottas that he gave the Finn a slap on the helmet at the end. Bottas responded with a friendly greeting, provided that the stinking finger outstretched can be classified as friendly and a greeting. “I don’t know what he wanted, because it was clearly his mistake,” Bottas explained a little later on the Dutch sports broadcaster “Ziggo Sport”.
“That could have turned out a lot worse”
Russell saw it clearly differently, according to his own statement he asked the Mercedes driver immediately after the accident: “Do you want to kill us both?” Bottas, in turn, replied, when asked about this statement: “He should better ask himself that. He was the one who wanted to kill us.” At the same time he stated: “That could have turned out much worse given the speed.” So there were two destroyed cars and two pilots, who each saw the blame on their counterparts.
RTL expert Nico Hülkenberg saw the responsibility for the violent accident in the fight for ninth place primarily with Bottas. “Russell misses to the right because Valtteri closes on the left. Valtteri then comes over, pushing Russell to get wet,” said the 179-time Grand Prix starter. “With slicks [Trockenreifen, Anm. d. Red.] you don’t have a chance on the wet. “Russell then tweeted that it was” okay to defend your position, but you have to respect the speed and the weather conditions at 330 km / h. “
The accident is also explosive because Bottas is sitting in the car whose cockpit Russell would like to take over in 2022. The Williams driver is considered to be one of the most talented drivers in Formula 1, and with the right equipment even as the upcoming world champion. His manager, in turn, is Toto Wolff, the team principal of Mercedes and thus Bottas. He therefore expressed himself diplomatically by awarding both drivers a partial debt. Bottas, because after a poor qualifying, he was well behind the front in the race – “first, Valtteri shouldn’t have driven around there” – and Russell, because “George didn’t have to take this risk”, to finish ninth conquer.
Wolff also provided the best summary of what happened by explaining: “Unfortunately, the crash was unnecessary.” Fortunately, it turned out so lightly that both drivers had the strength afterwards to look to each other for the responsibility for the accident, which caused the race to be interrupted for around 30 minutes before Max Verstappen in the Red Bull considered ahead of Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Lando Norris (McLaren) drove to victory.
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