Bottas finally comments on the Mercedes-Ferrari clashes

The Mercedes-Ferrari clashes in the last few races have left a bitter taste in the mouth, especially in the Mercedes camp, who on some level feel that Ferrari are ‘conspiring’ against them.

Hamilton wasn’t impressed with Raikkonen slamming into his rear during the British GP and suggested that Ferrari were using interesting tactics to keep Mercedes at bay.

Wolff and Lauda too openly criticised Ferrari, blaming them for using ‘cheap tactics’ to edge out Mercedes.

Bottas however had kept mum during the post Silverstone mayhem. He has now opened up about the entire fiasco while speaking to Crash.net, and has maintained a very neutral stance about the entire incident.

“No. From these incidents, I can’t say there are any concerns.” Bottas said

“I think we are always starting more or less in a similar position, so we are always going to be battling. Sometimes you get hit, and normally you tend to do so with cars that are not in the same team as you.

“We are fighting hard and this can happen. It’s only a couple of incidents. Of course, it’s been always pretty bad for us.” he added.

A lot of concern and debate was also around the fact that different penalties were awarded to Raikkonen and Vettel for almost similar incidents.

Toto Wolff, however, said that the stewards were doing their best to bring some sort of consistency in awarding penalties.

“I think there’s actually consistency on the penalties.” Wolff said.

“They are what they are and there’s a certain arsenal of penalties the stewards have available, a five second penalty and a 10-seconds penalty or a drive-through – that’s what they have in the regulations, and then they look at the precedents.

“What we need to discuss among all of us is that if certain incidents occur and they have a massive outcome in what’s happening, maybe around a race win and what the consequences will be that’s a different story.

“But on the penalty itself, they are like the rulebook says, so it is what it is.” Wolff concluded.