© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
After his crash with Valtteri Bottas, George Russell blamed the Finn and suggested that he wouldn’t have been so ‘aggressive’ against a different driver.
Russell seemed to suggest that Bottas was more unsafe when defending against him, because is thought to be a contender for a Mercedes seat next year.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff already called Russell’s statement “bulls*it” and now Bottas ridicules the whole theory.
“Sorry, I lost my aluminum foil hat somewhere, it’s quite a theory,” the Finn said.
“I’m always going to defend to any driver, I’m not keen to lose any positions. That was normal defending. It could have been a lot more aggressive if needed.
“I don’t agree with any of that at all. I was doing my thing. No matter who I would have been defending, it would have been exactly the same.
“Obviously he knew exactly that it was going to be damp there, because we have gone there lap after lap. And I knew as well, and it was just not a place to go in those conditions on slicks.
“But he still went there. It was his choice to go there, I was doing my job trying to defend, and I’m not going to move away and give him the dry patch back. That’s how it goes.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
Bottas says he had already spoken to Russell and Wolff about the incident.
“The overall feeling is that I’m not one to blame for that crash, for sure,” the Finn explained.
“I don’t want to speak anything about our private discussions with Toto. But the feeling is I’m definitely not one to blame on that.
“But the main thing we need to focus on is why I was in that position. Obviously I had quite a struggle with the inters, being stuck behind Lance [Stroll] all through the inter section of the race.
“When I stopped, obviously got pressure from the guys behind, who stopped earlier and got their tyres working already.
“That [tyre] warm-up was the bigger issue,” concluded the Finn.
