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The Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix
stewards have cleared George Russell and Valtteri Bottas of blame for their
dramatic collision which caused the race to be stopped.
The pair made contact approaching Tamburello as Russel was attempting to
overtake his rival. Both drivers blamed the other for the crash.
But after speaking to both and studying footage of the collision, the
stewards deemed it was a racing incident and decided not to penalise either
of them.
Russell accused Bottas of violating an agreement between drivers not to make
sudden moves while being overtaken. But the stewards ruled both drivers
behaved correctly.
“Car 63 [Russell] approached car 77 [Bottas] to pass after the front
straight a few laps after the restart when DRS had recently been enabled,”
the stewards explained. “Car 77 maintained his line throughout the incident
along the right hand side of the dry line, leaving at least a full car’s
width to the right at all times.
“Car 63 approached with a significant speed advantage. He moved to pass on
the right. As the cars approached the kink of turn one, the gap between them
and the right hand side of the track decreased. At no time did either car
manoeuvre erratically.
“The track appeared to be not especially wet through turn one but at the
point of closest approach to the right hand side of the track, the right
hand side tyres of car 63 hit an especially damp patch and the car
snap-yawed, bearing in mind that the car had low downforce in the rear with
the DRS open.
“The stewards conclude that the accident was a racing incident considering
the conditions and take no further action.” |
