29/11/2019
NEWS STORY
Valtteri Bottas has been given a reprimand for the clash with Romain Grosjean during today's second practice session.
Having viewed video evidence of the incident, which caused the session to be red flagged as the resultant debris was cleared from the track, and heard from both drivers and their respective team representatives, the stewards gave the Finn an official reprimand after he accepted full responsibility for the collision and acknowledged that it was a failed attempt at an overtake which caused it.
"I thought he would see me coming because he was at some point trying to cover the line," said the Finn. "So I thought he was aware I was there but maybe he didn’t look at the mirror before turning him.
"I expected him to see me and I saw the gap decreasing and there was no escape."
The Finn is to start Sunday's race from the back of the grid after Mercedes was forced to change his power unit due to damage incurred during the Brazilian Grand Prix.
"I spoke with Valtteri, and he apologised, which is nice," said Grosjean, "he said 'look, I'm starting last on Sunday so I'm trying overtaking manoeuvers, and that one was probably from too far away'.
"I didn't expect him to lunge from so far away," the Haas driver continued, "and then eventually he was in my blind spot so it's not like I could open the door. I think it was his fault, he apologised, it happens, we all do mistakes.
"Gunther was reminding me that I spun in the pitlane in Silverstone, I said 'thank you boss, that's still painful', but we all do mistakes, we're human, the only thing that I'm a bit sad about is that we've lost the car that we wanted to run."
Asked if a reprimand was sufficient punishment, the Frenchman said: "I don't know. He's already starting last on the grid, so you can give him as much of a grid place penalty as you want, it's not going to change anything.
"It's not a good move, but he apologised. Is it necessary to do that in FP2? I don't believe so. Is it putting us on the back foot? Yes. Is it going to hurt Mercedes? Not really.
"A reprimand? Well, I'm not a steward and I'm happy not to be one."
Check out our Friday gallery from Yas Marina, here.