The stewards have ruled that neither Valtteri Bottas nor George Russell were more guilty than the other in causing their mid-race crash at Imola. Russell was lining his Williams up to pass the Mercedes driver into the Tamburello corner in the drying conditions, when he appeared to lose control of his car and smashed into the side of Bottas. Both were uninjured and were able to climb out of their cars, after some angry words were exchanged between the pair. The race was red-flagged to repair the circuit tyre barriers, while the stewards investigated the incident. Following an investigation, in which both drivers presented their side of the story, the stewards have decreed it as a racing incident. "The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 63 (George Russell), the driver of Car 77 (Valtteri Bottas) and the team representatives and reviewed multiple angles of video evidence and telemetry," said the FIA press release. "[Russell] approached [Bottas] to pass after the front straight a few laps after the restart when DRS had recently been enabled. [Bottas] maintained his line throughout the incident along the right hand side of the dry line, leaving at least a full car’s width to theright at all times. "[Russell] approached with a significant speed advantage. He moved to pass on the right. As the cars approached the kink of Turn 1, the gap between them and the right hand side of the track decreased. At no time did either car manoeuvre erratically. "The track appeared to be not especially wet through Turn 1 but at the point of closest approach to the right hand side of the track, the right hand side tyres of [Russell] hit an especially damp patch and the car snap yawed, bearing in mind that the car had low downforce in the rear with the DRS open. "The Stewards conclude that the accident was a racing incident considering the conditions and take no further action."
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