Valtteri Bottas penalized on the starting grid
This Friday, Valtteri Bottas received a three-place grid penalty after a dangerous maneuver in the pit lane.

The Styrian weekend starts in the worst possible way for Valtteri Bottas. The Finn was handed a three-place grid penalty this Friday. As he was released by his team after fitting hard tires, the Mercedes driver spun in the pit lane. His car headed towards the McLaren box, but luckily no one was hit.
In a brief radio exchange with his engineer, driver #77 questioned the tire temperature issue. On McLaren’s side, this move didn’t amuse many people, and the team manager of the British team, Paul James, immediately contacted Michael Masi to alert him of the situation.
« Michael, this is absolutely ridiculous, he could have taken out our guys there and on the wall,” he declared. Upon receiving the message, the race management immediately opened an investigation into the Finn. Following the session, Bottas was summoned by the stewards and was handed a three-place grid penalty. Faced with such a rare event, race management chose to be firm.
Questioned about his maneuver, Bottas pleaded an error and explained that with his team they tried something new to exit the pits.
« We tried something different to get out of the pits. There are just variables compared to what we usually do with skating, and I ended up spinning. It’s a normal mistake, it happens. I’m sure they just want to understand what really happened. », he explained before going in front of the commissioners.
While the incident could have taken a turn for the worse, McLaren immediately helped the Finn get back on track in the pit lane in the right direction. For his part, the director of the British team, Andreas Seidl, preferred to turn the page on this incident.
« It was obviously scary, but it can happen. In the end, all we could do was help Valtteri get back on track by pushing him. I don’t know exactly what happened. It can happen. Let’s move on,” he explained on Sky Sports.
At the end of the second practice session, Valtteri Bottas finished in 12th position, 8 tenths behind Max Verstappen.