Bottas glad to be punished for mistake with FP2 crash

Valtteri Bottas says he prefers to be punished for making mistakes on circuits despite crashing heavily during second practice for the Austrian Grand Prix.

Bottas spun off the track at Turn 6 midway through FP2, running through the gravel and into the wall where his Mercedes W10 car sustained a sizeable amount of damage in a 25G crash.

Bottas was taken to the medical centre as a precaution before being released, later saying the shunt was “pretty big” but he was “all OK with no pain”.

Bottas was one of a number of drivers to pay the price for mistakes through practice due to the lack of run-off areas at the Red Bull Ring and high sausage kerbs, punishing those who ran outside of track limits.

“It makes a difference. I have to say, even though I crashed, I do prefer to be penalised for your mistakes,” Bottas said.

“It makes it a little bit more exciting. That’s how it should be, and the tiniest error will cost a lot here with aggressive kerbs and run-offs and everything. I think that’s the way to go.”

Bottas’ crash came at the end of a difficult day that started with Mercedes changing the power unit on his car after an oil leak.

However, the Finn was pleased with his pace regardless, having finished second in FP2 behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc despite his crash.

“This morning we had a bit of an issue with the engine, so we had to swap back to the first one for first practice,” Bottas said.

“That compromised first practice a little bit, but still found clear direction on the car setup where to go, and made pretty big changes for FP2 and felt a lot better until obviously I had the shunt.

“Before that I was feeling quite nice, so overall, a good feeling. But some other teams are quick as well.

“I think we have a good car here. But as we saw, some other teams are very quick as well, but a least we’ve got a clear direction where to go for tomorrow again, and we’ll see how it goes.”