Already unhappy at being referred to as Lewis Hamilton's "wingman" by Toto Wolff following today's Hungarian Grand Prix, Valtteri Bottas' mood will have taken a turn for the worse after stewards penalised him for his late clash with Daniel Ricciardo.

Though the Hungaroring stewards deemed no further action was necessary in terms of the clash with Sebastian Vettel, the Finn was called before the stewards following his subsequent clash with Ricciardo.

Missing much of his front wing, which was damaged in the clash with Vettel, as he fought with Ricciardo for fourth in the closing laps of the race, he lacked downforce as he attempted to hold off the Australian as he made his move in Turn 1 and subsequently went into the side of the Red Bull.

"With Seb he had a good run into Turn 2, we had a bit of a battle in Turn 1," Bottas said of the first of the clashes. "I still had my nose inside into Turn 2, he was on the outside, he turned in very early and for me there was nowhere to go. We touched and I was the only one who got damaged. Fair enough, I think racing incident.

"With Daniel, it was a similar thing," he added. "I was more next to him on the inside. I had no front half of my wing so I was locking up as well. I am sure he saw that I was going quite quick into the corner but he still turned in, and then we touched."

Having reviewed the video evidence and heard from both drivers however, the stewards imposed a 10s time penalty and also gave the Finn 2 penalty points.

They deemed that Bottas had a damaged front wing from an earlier incident and as the two cars approached Turn 1, Ricciardo was on the outside of the turn and gave plenty of room.

With the compromised line and less downforce from the front wing Bottas locked up, and collided with Ricciardo forcing him off the track and causing damage.

Though both cars continued, the stewards felt the 10 second penalty was appropriate for an incident as defined by Article 38.1 of the Sporting Regulations.

Check out our Sunday gallery from the Hungaroring, here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Pavlo, 30/07/2018 22:29

"In fact Valterri gets no penalty doing 2 times more crashes than Seb and Kimi. Stewards could have called it 0s, 5s or 20s with the same (no) result, and 2 points obviously are close to nothing.
I think Toto and Niki are pretty ashamed now about their previos comments, this may be the reason of that "wingman" comment. Or are they hinting that Valterri as a proper wingman made it deliberately?"

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2. Posted by Karim, 30/07/2018 8:16

"@*TestaRossa*
When Vettel hit Bottas in LeCastelet he was given a 5 sec penalty. (and one of the Team Mercedes Board Chairman stated that even that was too lenient).
When Valeri hit Seb in an even more spectacular way, he got away with no penalty.
He got the 10 se's for crashing into Daniel Ricciardo."

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3. Posted by *TestaRossa*, 29/07/2018 18:02

"So Valt and Kimi get 10 seconds and Vet only 5sec after crashing in a competitor.
Vettel can do no wrong even after so many crashes already."

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Bottas penalised for Ricciardo clash

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