Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Bottas a doubt for Australian Grand Prix

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Valtteri Bottas is a doubt for the Australian Grand Prix after suffering from pain in his back during qualifying.

During Q2, Bottas started to feel pain which continued throughout the final part of qualifying. With the Finn heading to hospital for checks on Saturday night, head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley explained the team will not know if he can race until Sunday morning.

"He felt some pain under braking at the end of his second attempt in qualifying two,” Smedey said. “Then it kind of escalated from there through the third qualifying. At the minute he has been down to the medical centre, and he has been checked out. He has gone to the hospital for further checks.

"That's all we know at the moment. The update will be tomorrow, he's going back to his hotel and he's going to rest. He's not being kept in overnight. He'll come back in and he'll be checked over tomorrow.”

With Bottas having completed his Q3 attempt despite being in pain, asked if it is an issue he could attempt to race with, Smedley replied: "It's not for me to say to be honest. That's for the medical people to say.

"What we have to do, he has to go through the correct checks this evening and tomorrow, and time will tell. He has to get through the initial bit, have all the correct medical care and treatment, have the assessment tomorrow, and then we'll know from that point on.

“I’m sure now we’ll need to go and have a look at all angles [of potential] cause but the main thing is now we need to find out what is going to happen for tomorrow.”

And Smedley was full of praise for Bottas to still qualify in sixth place despite his discomfort.

”I think he was in a great deal of pain, and he managed to be three tenths off that little group in front - the two Ferraris and Felipe - so he has done a really good job.”

Should Bottas be unfit to race, Williams will be unable to replace him as he qualified the car.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.