Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes has ‘damaged beyond repair’

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has informed that Valtteri Bottas’ W12 has been mostly “damaged beyond repair”. It comes after Bottas and Williams’ George Russell collided on lap 32 as they fought over ninth place at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix last Sunday. Following the collision, both the drivers were sent into the barriers, destroying their cars.

Andrew Shovlin has now given an update on the situation of the car. “Unfortunately, quite a lot of it is damaged beyond repair and we are just looking at a logistics plan to try and be able to get sufficient parts to Portimao, which is the week after next, to make sure we can run both cars in the correct spec,” he said.

Shovlin also sounded positive about Bottas’ health situation. “As much as we like our car, we like Valtteri more and happily he was able to come out of that with not much more than a bruised knee from the impact,” added Shovlin.

He further went on explain the extent of damage happened in the car and what can be salvaged out of it. “But it was a big crash, we were seeing around 30g at points in his trip around the walls and the track,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the car has not done quite so well. We have managed to bring a lot of it back to the UK, we got the power unit at Brixworth where that’s being checked and inspected carefully. We will just pick through this and some of the bits we might be able to salvage.”

On Sunday, both George Russell and Valtteri Bottas have avoided punishment by the Emilia Romagna GP stewards following their high-speed crash.

A stewards’ report read: “The stewards conclude that the accident was a racing incident considering the conditions and take no further action.”