Power unit in Bottas’ Mercedes F1 car mostly “damaged beyond repair”

The power unit in Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes Formula 1 car was largely “damaged beyond repair” in his massive race-ending crash with George Russell at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Bottas and Williams driver Russell came together at high-speed on the run to the Tamburello chicane while fighting over ninth place at last weekend’s race at Imola, resulting in a violent double impact with the barriers that registered at around 30G.

While Russell and Bottas walked away from the incident unscathed aside from a bruised knee for the latter, the same could not be said for either of their cars.

SEE ALSO: How costly will Bottas-Russell F1 crash prove to be for Mercedes?

The extent of the damage sustained to Bottas’ W12 has now been revealed by Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.

“As much as we like our car, we like Valtteri more and happily he was able to come out of that with not much more than a bruised knee from the impact,” Shovlin said.

“But it was a big crash, we were seeing around 30G at points in his trip around the walls and the track. Unfortunately, the car has not done quite so well. There is a fair amount of damage to that.

“We have managed to bring a lot of it back to the UK, we got the power unit at Brixworth where that's being checked and inspected carefully and we will just pick through this and some of the bits we might be able to salvage. Unfortunately, quite a lot of it is damaged beyond repair.”

Shovlin said that Mercedes’ focus is ensuring it now has enough parts for the upcoming Portuguese Grand Prix on 2 May.

He added: “We are just looking at a logistics plan to try and be able to get sufficient parts to Portimão, which is the week after next, to make sure we can run both cars in the correct spec.”