Valtteri Bottas says Formula 1 rookie Franco Colapinto was to blame for the lengthy delay in forming up on the grid at Monza that earned the ire of commentator Martin Brundle.
Sauber duo Bottas and his team-mate Zhou Guanyu had qualified in the final two positions on the grid for the Italian Grand Prix, behind Williams’ new driver Colapinto.
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But the last two cars were slow to form up before the start, which caught the attention of Brundle – who said it was not great for the drivers at the front who were having to wait there for a while with tyres cooling down.
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Speaking on Sky Sports F1’s broadcast, Brundle said: “They’re having to sit on the front of the grid for quite a long time and the problem they had last week in Zandvoort, they didn’t get enough heat into their rear tyres and a long wait on the front row of the grid won’t help that for McLaren.”
After waiting a bit longer for Bottas and Zhou to get to their grid slots, he added: “This is taking too long. They really need to talk in the drivers’ briefing about this, there is too long for the back row to line up.”
But while attention was focused on the final cars on the grid, Bottas has revealed that the issue was caused by Colapinto falling far behind Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll ahead of him during the lap – so he had no choice but to go slow too.
This was something that he remarked about over team radio at the time.
He told engineer Steven Petrik: “The gap between the car in front and the car in front was very big, according to the rules."
Asked if he felt Colapinto was too slow, Bottas replied: “Yes, very slow."
F1’s rules are not specific on how big the gap can be between cars during the formation lap, as article 44.8 is quite loose in its wording.
It states: “During the formation lap practice starts are forbidden and the formation must be kept as tight as possible.”
But even without a specified distance, Bottas revealed afterwards that he made sure to report it just in case it helped catch the attention of race control – who could have punished Colapinto for what he did.
Asked about his radio message on Colapinto, Bottas said: “Yeah, it was just I don't know why the gap was so big. Obviously it's his first time, but still I'm sure he will learn from it.
“I just reported it because we might gain a place if he gets a penalty. That's the name of the game.”
