The strong accident of Bottas and Russell in Imola that could end in tragedy: the halo saved him

One of the images that will leave the Emilia Romagna GP had two drivers ironically fighting for the same seat for 2022. George Russell Y Valtteri Bottas they had a strong blow midway through the race, when they were fighting for position.

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Establishing 100% guilt in this accident is, to say the least, complicated. For one thing, Russell went to the wet grass to try to pass Bottas, making a rookie mistake: the slip made him spin against the Mercedes at a very high speed, over 300 km / h, and both ended crashed against the wall. On the other, there is the Bottas defense: he moved slightly to the right, which for Russell was seen as a very dangerous change of trajectory that cornered him.

Nothing else to have the blow, Russell went to recriminate Bottas, still in the car, and in fact ended up making a comb for him, according to the Finn confessed. The one of Williams he tapped his helmet to hug him and then insisted that the Mercedes driver had made that change of direction with the DRS open, which is very serious.

“In completely dry conditions it would have been fine, but he put me in the wet area and I lost control. I asked him if he was trying to kill us both,” lamented Russell, who later on social media also noted this factor: ” At 330 km / h you have to respect the speed and conditions when doing it, “he wrote on twitter.

Beyond the complaints of one and the other, caused in part because both have options to be in Mercedes in 2022, the accident could have had much more serious consequences. Later images of Bottas’ car showed that the halo was marked after the hit. In the absence of this device, which has been in Formula 1 for several years, Bottas would have possibly received a blow to the helmet that would have been fatal.