The incident between Bottas and Russell has been judged by several pros in slowmotion. They agreed that it was not a fault by anybody, even Toto Wolff said it's maybe 40:60 but he doesn't know who is more guilty.
Bottas had a sh*tty weekend and at that time of race was a little bit slower due to new dry tyres on the wet. Russell was a little bit overambitious. Nobody risks a crash at 330 km/h for Hamiltion to get a 2nd chance (too much conspiracy in this arguement). A few rounds later Bottas would have overtaken Russell again. So it was not really necessary for Russell to take the hammer out.
- Bottas went very slowly to the right but left Russell enough space.
- Russell missjudged the gab between them and went too far to the right, so he turned into Bottas.
- There was no need for Russell to move that far to the right side.
- In fact, there was no need to showoff for Russell.
Toto Wolff was very angry after the race and mentioned that Russell was a little bit selfish, not thinking of MERC as a team while Williams gets MERC engines. Russell is the hottest candidate for a MERC cockpit next to Hamilton in 2022. Not sure about it now. The MERC is now a piece of junk and sets MERC back in developing costs as there is a budget cap of 175 millions per team this year.
The little fight was a good reminder of the Piquet/Salazar box fight.
Nobody would have known that Salazar ever has been in F1 but with shooting out Piquet he's now immortal.