Bottas crash diagnosis and his bold stance on Cadillac F1 future

The Cadillac Formula 1 team is rolling back the specification of a suspension component after diagnosing the cause of Valtteri Bottas’s dramatic crash in Mexico last weekend.

Bottas shunted out of the Mexico race when his front left suspension failed at the first corner, sending the car backwards into the barrier deep into the run-off.

Fortunately, Bottas avoided a heavy enough hit to do significant lasting damage, as he revealed on Thursday in Brazil that his pain immediately afterwards - when he was uncharacteristically loud on the radio, and stayed in the car speaking to the FIA medical team - was because he banged his right leg against the steering wheel when the car made contact with the wall.

That left Bottas with some muscle bruising that he says feels “completely normal already”, and he has no issue getting back into the car again this weekend because Cadillac has already identified the cause.

Similar to when Sergio Perez suffered a front suspension failure in Canada due to a leak of hot air from brake ducts, Bottas’s problem arose from running heat from the brakes “going to the wishbones”.

He tends to run a bit hotter on the brakes with his driving style compared to Perez anyway, but the primary issue seems to be the Mexico challenge exceeding what Cadillac had set its tolerances to and “running too long a time in the red zone”.

This should not be repeated at Interlagos with less of a braking and cooling demand at this track, but Cadillac has taken the necessary corrective action as a precaution anyway before what Bottas said needs to be “good redesigning for the future”.

“We did have certain limits when it comes to temperatures, but we’ve had to review those,” Bottas said.

“We’ve had to revert some parts to older spec. And also we’ve had to revert the limits on temperatures that we can run on those.”

Asked by The Race about that spec change, Bottas clarified: “It’s just the wishbone mountings, yeah. And we’ve lowered the limits, which shouldn’t be an issue here.

“We thought it was safe, but we never tested by running it so long at that temperature.”

He added: “Based on the forecast here, I think we should be OK.

“But they’re still doing more testing at the factory with the right side of the suspension, that is now back in Silverstone.

“So they’re doing some stress testing and trying to get more accurate temperature limits on those.”

Bottas has had some demoralising race performances this year caused directly by having to engage in a lot of temperature management.

It has been a recurring issue for Cadillac in different ways, with Bottas seemingly more affected, which has not aided his cause against Perez, who is widely regarded as being the better performing Cadillac driver by some margin.

Bottas said at the United States Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago that he felt it was “impossible” to judge the two drivers given Cadillac’s newcomer status and poor reliability record this season – particularly significant right now given there is speculation over his future at the team.

Cadillac is pushing to make sure Colton Herta is eligible for an F1 superlicence and other drivers have been lobbying for a race seat with the team, despite Bottas being on a multi-year contract.

Bottas has therefore faced repeat questions about his future and this reoccurred at Interlagos - where he said “at least everyone can see what we’re dealing with – many issues and many DNFs”.

“And also for some reason my car was running hotter in Mexico,” Bottas said.

“So it meant I had to do more management, more lift and coast. And even though I did, still we had a failure.

“So it’s not so straightforward in terms of judging the performance this year.”

Bottas said “the people who know, they know” and reiterated that the message he has had from Cadillac and its majority owner TWG is that he is doing a good job.

He expects his future to be rubber-stamped by a board meeting involving co-owner General Motors and has been “quite surprised by the amount of noise” around his future and the candidacy of others.

“All I’ve heard, the team has been happy with what I’m doing,” he said.

“But at the same time, we know how this world works. And especially now, everyone wants to be in Formula 1.

“If somebody sees an opportunity somewhere, they’re going to try and go for it, one way or the other.

“But the way our team is structured, and the way decisions are made for the future, everything needs to be approved by the board.

“I believe that meeting is still yet to happen. But I’ve been convinced that nothing has changed. So that’s where we are.”

Though Bottas feels he has had the lion’s share of the team’s problems this season, Perez has often been outspoken about just how much Cadillac needs to improve.

Perez, though, extended his Cadillac deal through to 2029 recently and has always seemed to have much more security in his position. The quality of his performances has also emboldened him to speak very bluntly about the team’s progress curve at times, too.

Bottas, meanwhile, is waiting for confirmation that the original plan to keep him in a race seat is honoured, much less agree to a new deal.

He said the situation Cadillac’s in, including the difficulties and the fact “they haven’t really delivered me the car that I can do much” with, is “always what I expected for the first year” – and called Mexico a “good example” that Cadillac has “bigger problems to solve than the drivers at the moment”.

Bottas added that his expectation for this year was “definitely not a mindset to fight for my seat” and when suggested by The Race that it would be slightly odd to bring him in for experience and long-term progress, then make a judgement that the performance is not what Cadillac was looking for, he replied: “I agree. It would be very odd.

“So that’s why I don’t think anything is going to change in my situation.

“That was kind of always the deal. All season I’ve been really following instructions. Sometimes it has been very clear that I just try and get the car to the finish line.

“But of course there’s always people who look from the outside, they maybe don’t understand the big picture. Then you get the criticism, which is normal in this sport.

“The main thing is we know where we are. I know what my job is. If they want something further from me, then I’m sure they will tell me.”