Valtteri Bottas crashed his Mercedes W10 heavily during the second free practice session of the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, on a day in which the shortest track on the Formula 1 calendar proved to have a mean streak.
"Sausage kerbs" were the buzz words after the morning session in which several cars lost or damaged their front wings or put another way, big money turned to carbon shards in the 90-minutes of incident-packed track action.
The afternoon got worse and substantially more expensive as the track, set in a deceptive 'Sound of Music' backdrop, proved how treacherous it can really be when first it caught out Max Verstappen who crumpled his Red Bull which prompted a red flag.
Then shortly after the session resumed, Bottas had a 'big one' when he got on the gas too early through Turn 6, the back surprised him with nasty little a side-step, the snap made the Merc its own boss as it speared over the gravel and nose-first into the barriers at speed, the front wheels broken and dangling off their tethers when the dust settled.
Thankfully the Finn was unhurt and reported afterwards, "I just lost the rear end suddenly into Turn Five. Very unexpected, made a correction, but it was a bit too late. This afternoon is a bit windier and the track is very penalising on making mistakes. It can happen I guess."
"It was pretty big hit for me but I'm all okay with no pain. There were some gusts out there this afternoon and I think I managed to find one of them - the corners here are very tricky and very penalising if you make even a small error."
"But I must say I prefer this kind of circuit which penalises mistakes - it's how I like it and it makes it even more exciting. Before the shunt, I had an issue with the engine this morning which meant we swapped to the old one for FP1."
"That compromised me a little bit but we found a clear direction on car set-up. We made some pretty big changes for FP2 and it felt a lot better until the accident. So overall, a good feeling on the car performance but other teams are quick as well."
"It's going to be very hot this weekend, especially on Sunday, and will put the cars to the limit in terms of cooling the brakes and the engine. I think it's going to be very close on the timesheets and it should be fun in qualifying," predicted the Mercedes driver.
https://www.grandprix247.com/2019/06/28/austria-fp2-leclerc-tops-max-and-bottas-crash-close-call-for-seb/
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