Should Ricciardo have been penalised for spinning Bottas?

A dramatic start at the opening sequence of corners in Mexico was one of the main talking points from an otherwise fairly uneventful 18th round of the 2021 F1 season. 

Ricciardo locked his front-right wheel on approach to the first corner and ended up tagging poleman Bottas as they turned in, pitching the Mercedes driver into a spin. 

The incident triggered further chaos behind as Esteban Ocon made contact with and eliminated both Mick Schumacher and Yuki Tsunoda. 

Bottas and Ricciardo were able to continue but were left at the back of the field, with neither driver able to recover to the points. 

Speaking directly after the race and before he had the chance to view a reply, Ricciardo insisted he felt he had everything "more or less under control” under braking. 

“It all happened very quickly,” Ricciardo said. “I had a very good start and there was room on the inside of the Red Bull, so I went down the very inside of the track. 

“I felt that under braking everything was more or less under control. At the last moment before the apex everything tightened up. 

“I locked up a bit and then Valtteri came down. I hit him so there is some of it in there for me? I want to have a look at it. 

“But it does not change the outcome. First lap incidents are painful. 

“I do not have a ton of them but you go from potentially fourth or fifth to last in a matter of seconds. That was a shame.” 

The incident was noted but never investigated by the stewards, something which Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted came as a surprise. 

“I think the stewards should have a look into it but at that point,” he said. “In hindsight, it was surprising that they didn’t look at a penalty.” 

Bottas spent the majority of the race staring at the back of Ricciardo’s gearbox as he struggled to find a way past the McLaren. 

While Wolff acknowledged that a penalty for Ricciardo "would have helped in the race”, he ultimately conceded “at that moment our train has left the station anyway”.

McLaren argued the coming together was a typical first lap racing incident.

Just two races earlier at the Turkish Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly was given a time penalty for tapping Fernando Alonso into a spin at the first corner. 

On that occasion, the AlphaTauri driver was deemed ‘wholly’ to blame by the stewards, who did not consider the incident to be an “unavoidable lap one turn one contact between two cars”. 

There were different circumstances here, including nature of the first turn at Istanbul Park and the fact the race start was wet. 

“You’ve got to look at each and every incident and see how it goes,” said FIA race director Michael Masi, who did not have the chance to discuss the incident with the stewards or review the incident prior to speaking to the media. 

“For starters, Turkey was wet, this was dry. It was a completely different corner configuration.” 

Asked if Ricciardo making the apex was a factor in the decision not to launch an investigation, Masi replied: “That could be a scenario, having a look at the proximity of the cars, where they all are compared to each other.

“There’s a whole lot of different factors that come into it. The stewards’ view was that it was on this occasion a Turn 1 racing incident.”