The crash wasn’t even the most interesting part of the race. What do you get when you Google “F1 replay”?
I must have missed that. He was so far back that it didn’t matter. At least he actually finished the race, compared to Vettel whose official result is “DNF”.
Vettel actually finished ahead of both the Haas in the race classification despite DNFing, serving a stop-go penalty, and making three pit stops.
My initial reaction when I first saw it was to blame Russell. Having rewatched it a number of times in slow motion, like you I wouldn’t say there was a ‘twitch’ from Bottas. But I think I would assign the majority of the blame to him - he should have been aware of Russell overtaking there, I suspect he didn’t see him coming until it was too late, then slightly moved across to try and cut him off - but that made the collision inevitable. From Russell’s point of view, he had a huge overspeed and there was a gap, no doubt he assumed Bottas would see him coming and stay to the left of the white line on the track, which would have left enough room. While Bottas, as he said, was following (the right-most edge of) the dry line, so as far as he was concerned the painted line on the track was irrelevant. I think if Russell had held his line and touched the side of Bottas, everyone would be saying Bottas was at fault for closing the door on him too late. As it was, he took avoiding action, not realising that would have the same result.
A good weekend for Norris, I hope he gets Hamilton’s seat next season (surely if Hamilton wins another title he will call it quits? F1 is much safer than ever before but it’s not ‘safe’).
I think it’s a racing incident and Russell probably overreacted at the time. I don’t think Bottas did anything wrong - he was literally following the racing line and then seems to jerk left slightly when he (I assume) realised Russell was coming up on his right. Perhaps that was enough to spook Russell but not sure Bottas did anything outrageously wrong there.
Oh, I absolutely agree it was a racing incident, with no reason for the stewards to penalise either driver. And yes, naturally both drivers over-reacted in the heat of the moment (who hasn’t had collision on the road and not been immediately furious with the other driver - well, I have actually, but not because I’m awesome, far from it - it was because in both cases the incident was very clearly 100% my fault).
That being said, there is still a question of fault and I would assign the majority of it to Bottas. Part of being a professional racing driver is being hyper-aware of your surroundings and he just wasn’t in this case. I think from Russell’s point of view, he realised while alongside that Bottas seemed to be moving across his line and by the time Bottas reacted, it was too late. After all, it all happened in about 2 seconds real time. Not outrageously wrong by Bottas (unless he knew Russell was there and intentionally closed the door too late, but that will never be known) but deserving of some censure in my eyes. I certainly can’t see Russell getting a telling-off from Toto.
Officially deemed a racing incident.
Yeah, what’s up with that? I guess if you’ve been lapped, they don’t really care anymore if you finish the race. Come to think of it, Schumacher and Mazepin didn’t run the extra 2 laps at the end, did they.
That was probably the biggest impact of the crash, which happened right after Hamilton had run off the track into the gravel. By the time, Hamilton had made it back onto the track, he had been lapped and undoubtedly out of the running for the podium. But the race got red flagged, undoing all the lapped positions back into real positions for the restart. And so he made that amazing run back to P2.
Once the leader finishes, everyone else finishes their race at the end of whatever lap they are on. Haas were three laps down when they finished and were thusly classified three laps behind. Vettel was on the same lap as Verstappen when he retired and that happened less than three laps from the end.
And yes: there was an extra formation-style lap after the red flag that allowed most drivers to unlap themselves but that was just the one lap. The Haas drivers were way more than one lap down.
No doubt some conspiracy theorists are speculating that Bottas intentionally crashed in order to trigger the safety car that helped Hamilton. I must admit the thought immediately crossed my mind. But it’s nonsense, of course, for several reasons: the nature of the incident, way too early in the season, way too dangerous.
Woo Hoo! Found the race online, and have saved my 30 year run! 
Nice one
I didn’t see Bottas or Russell do much wrong but I thought the latter’s reaction afterwards was a bit off. Initially it looked as though Russell was going to check he was ok, instead he seemed to berate him, lash out, and leave him sat in a smoking car.
Fun race. I wonder if the grass wasn’t wet if Russell could have gotten away with that little off and pulled the move off. We’ll never know.
I bookmarked that site to replay races ‘Just in Case’.
Well, evidently I was wrong about this, as Russell has apologised. Some politics involved of course, but I can’t believe he really means it. Well, he may mean the part relating to his actions/words immediately after the incident, but I doubt he regrets going for the overtake, and nor should he in my view. Bottas must know his days at Mercedes are numbered, I think.
Jolyon Palmer had a nice little analysis of the Bottas/Russell incident.
Great video, thanks for linking to it - I guess I’ll revise my opinion, I still think Bottas should have been a bit more aware of the situation and not crossed the white line, but Russell did have room, he just couldn’t quite thread the needle.
Mario certainly knows more about it than I ever will, but damn, Herta is making Indycar fun to watch. Hell, the clean first lap at St. Pete’s this week itself was somewhat amazing.
The historic Monaco f1 races were last weekend. A bunch of different races broken up by era. Loved the sound of all of them, but especially those DFV’s from the late 60’s through the the 70’s!
The Montreal Grand Prix for 2021 (June 11-13) has been cancelled, due to health reasons. The contract to hold it annually has been extended to 2031. An official announcement will be made soon. A possible replacement is Istanbul (Turkey has more than double the per capita daily new cases of Covid than either India or Brazil - or Canada).
An article (in French) posted just now: Formule 1 | Le Grand Prix du Canada annulé | La Presse
Chain Bear has finally come out with his analysis of the Bottas-Russell crash, with some very good animations, and puts it in the context of “racing incidents”.
