Wolff dismisses Russell’s “bull***t” theory for F1 crash with Bottas

Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff has dismissed George Russell’s theory about his huge Emilia Romagna Grand Prix crash with Valtteri Bottas as “bullshit”.

The pair suffered a violent crash when Russell lost control of his Williams while attempting to overtake Bottas at the fast kink on the run to the Tamburello chicane.

Both cars were sent spearing into the barriers on the left-hand side of the track, before having a second big impact with the wall to the right of the circuit at the first corner.

A furious Russell claimed that Bottas broke the 'gentleman’s agreement’ and used a “sort of Verstappen move of 2015” by squeezing him unnecessarily. He even went as far as to suggest the Finn might have avoided the crash had it been another driver.

But Wolff was not impressed by Russell’s explanation, responding: “That’s bullshit. The whole situation is absolutely not amusing for us, to be honest. It’s quite a big shunt.

“Our car is a write-off and in a cost-cap environment that is certainly not what we needed and it’s probably going to limit the upgrades that we are able to do.

“Simply the fact that we ended there by losing it on the wet, because there was no contact before that, it was losing it on the wet, making both cars crash out is not what I expect to see." 

The stewards ultimately cleared both drivers of any wrongdoing, declaring the crash a racing incident in tricky conditions. 

While Wolff refused to put the blame on either driver, he believes Russell has “lots to learn” from the accident.

“There is never such a situation in life where one is 100 percent to blame and the other zero,” Wolff explained. “The whole situation should have never happened.

“Valtteri had bad first 30 laps and should have never been there. But George should never have launched into this manoeuvre considering that the track was drying up.

“It meant taking risk and the other car in front of him is a Mercedes. Any driver development, any young driver, you must never lose this global perspective. So yeah, lots to learn for him I guess.”

Asked if he expected Russell to handle the situation differently given it was a Mercedes car he was trying to pass, Wolff replied: "You need to see that there is a Mercedes and it’s wet - so there is a certain risk to overtake and the odds are against him anyway when the track is drying up.

“I don’t want him to try to prove anything to us, because one thing I can say, knowing Valtteri for five years, is that he is not trying to prove anything.”