Hungary chaos causers Bottas and Stroll downplay Spa F1 penalties

Mercedes driver Bottas and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll will each drop five places on the grid from wherever they qualify in Belgium this weekend after triggering the first corner carnage in Hungary that wiped out three other drivers and left title favourite Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo with damage.

But Bottas believes Spa is one of the better tracks to have to take a grid penalty at and said he will be focusing on maximising his race pace across the weekend.

“I think on this track, the race pace is always quite important if you compare it with your qualifying pace,” the Finn explained.

“So we need to focus on that, on whatever we do in the practice but not forgetting that I still need to qualify well, as I don’t want to start out of the top ten, for example.

“But out of all the tracks to get a grid penalty, this one is definitely on the good side of the list because racing is good here.

“You can overtake if you have the pace, so race pace is going to be the key.”

Stroll was equally unfazed by the prospect of his looming grid drop, insisting it “doesn’t really change much” for how he will approach the weekend.

“What’s done is done, I have the grid penalty,” Stroll said.

“I’m focussed on what I can do. It’s a track that you can overtake on, so there’s still a lot of a lot of opportunity and a long race ahead.”