Bottas penalised for Sirotkin crash

Bottas penalised for Sirotkin crash

Joas van Wingerden

Sunday 26 August 2018 19:00

Valtteri Bottas was punished by stewards at the Belgian Grand Prix after crashing into Sergey Sirotkin on the opening lap at Spa-Francorchamps. The Mercedes man was given a five-second time penalty and two penalty points on his licence, although it did not take fourth place away from him.

Bottas started the race 17th on the grid after taking a fresh power unit, but remained hopeful of a podium finish.

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Those hopes effectively went up in smoke as he rear-ended the Williams, forcing him into the pits for a new nose

Sirotkin survived the crash to briefly run ninth - his first tours in the top 10 all season - but he finished 12th.

Bottas stormed past the Force India of Sergio Perez with four laps to go and opened up a 7.4 second gap by the chequered flag, ensuring he kept his place despite the penalty.

Job done. From the back to P4! Big, big performance from @ValtteriBottas! #BelgianGP ???????? #F1 pic.twitter.com/NQlukU0S9M — Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) August 26, 2018

He said of his race: "I was hoping to maybe get the chance to be on podium, but I had a collision going into Turn 1 which damaged my front wing.

"After that P4 was the maximum we could get and it's not a bad result given the fact that we started from P17.

"I actually quite enjoyed the drive today, as I got to overtake a lot of cars. My favourite moment was probably the pass in Eau Rouge - that was a lot of fun."