Mercedes has outlined its ambition to have its W12s in the same specification in Portugal in the wake of Valtteri Bottas’ hefty accident at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Bottas was involved in a clash with Williams’ George Russell on the approach to Tamburello and sustained hefty impacts with the barriers on either side of the track.
Bottas was not injured in the accident, which was deemed a racing incident, though his car sustained sizeable damage.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff feared the damage, and subsequent repair job, could impact Mercedes’ development programme moving forward.
Speaking in Mercedes’ usual post-race debrief video trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained that an initial assessment of the damage has been undertaken.
“It was a big crash, we were seeing around 30g at points in his trip around the walls and the track,” said Shovlin.
“Unfortunately, the car has not done quite so well. There is a fair amount of damage to that.
“We have managed to bring a lot of it back to the UK, we got the power unit at Brixworth where that’s being checked and inspected carefully and we will just pick through this and some of the bits we might be able to salvage.
“Unfortunately, quite a lot of it is damaged beyond repair and we are just looking at a logistics plan to try and be able to get sufficient parts to Portimão, which is the week after next, to make sure we can run both cars in the correct spec.”
Bottas’ exit marked Mercedes’ first crash-related retirement from a grand prix since Germany 2019.
The Finn was able to return to action on Wednesday, behind the wheel of the W10, as part of a tyre test at Imola.
