Valtteri Bottas's return to Formula 1 ended after 16 laps of the Australian Grand Prix, in which he became the fifth retirement.
The Finn was told to stop his Cadillac machine at the entry to the pit-lane, with the entry briefly being closed to allow marshals to recover the stricken Ferrari-powered machine.
Bottas followed Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Isack Hadjar (Red Bull), Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) in retiring in the early stages of the grand prix.
Alonso was told to stop by pitting, with Hadjar suffering an engine failure in his Red Bull.
Piastri crashed on the recon lap prior to the formation lap of his home grand prix, whilst Hulkenberg also failed to start after a late technical gremlin developed on his Audi machine.
Also interesting:
RN365's Breaking News
Don't miss out on any of the Formula 1 action thanks to this handy 2026 F1 calendar that can be easily loaded into your smartphone or PC.
Download the calenderMost read
In this article











Join the conversation!