Valtteri Bottas has been handed a three-place grid penalty after his embarrassing spin in the pit-lane during practice at the Styrian Grand Prix.
The Finn simply lost the rear entering the fast lane out of his box and drifted in front of the McLaren garage, thankfully coming to a stop without hitting anything or worse… anyone.
Explaining what happened to the media afterwards, Bottas revealed: “We tried something different coming out of the box and there were some variables compared to what I normally do and that’s why I spun.”
In their report, the stewards revealed that “something different” was to leave in second gear, triggering much more wheelspin than usual and thus Valtteri’s “unexpected” result.
It continued that because Bottas “didn’t manage to control the car properly, this has to be considered as potentially dangerous driving, especially as personnel were around in the pit lane”.
This is why he has been given the three-place grid penalty for race day plus two points on his superlicence.
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Overall, Practice 2 wasn’t a fun session for Bottas, who finished 12th in the final standings. But he downplayed his apparent lack of pace.
“Practice 1 felt a bit better and Practice 2, I just had one run with lower fuel level that was a bit messy, so the lap time on the board is nothing amazing,” he said.
“But the topic for today was to focus on long runs and try to focus on long-run performance. I think we prepared ourselves pretty well today and hopefully, that will pay off on Sunday.”
If it is, he’ll have to do from a little further back than expected.
