Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Bottas cleared to race in Malaysia

Valtteri Bottas has been cleared to take part in the Malaysian Grand Prix following a back injury.

The Finn suffered pain during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, and after a night in hospital he was ruled out of the opening race in Melbourne having failed to pass FIA tests on the morning of the grand prix.

Following a week of recovery and training in Indonesia, Bottas has now been passed fit by the FIA medical delegate at Sepang, and will be able to race alongside team-mate Felipe Massa this weekend.

"Following the injury that Valtteri sustained to his lower back during qualifying for the Australian GP, he has been with a leading physiotherapist who has been working with Valtteri and his trainer to make sure he received the best treatment possible ahead of this weekend’s race," Williams said in a statement.

"The team has always been fully supportive of Valtteri and his determination to return to the cockpit and following final approval by the FIA medical team in Malaysia today, we are pleased to confirm that Valtteri will be back in the FW37 this weekend for the Malaysian Grand Prix."

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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.