Mercedes admit they saw killer debris that ruined Bottas' race

The Mercedes pit wall saw the piece of debris less than a second before Valterri Bottas rain over it, causing the puncture that ended his race in Baku.

Bottas was leading until the heart-breaking incident after looking after his super soft tyres and pitting under the safety car to re-join the race ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.

After an exceptional safety car restart, the race looked to be his until the unfortunate puncture.

Mercedes engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained that it was too late for them to warn the Finn of the damage.

“We didn’t give him a warning because we didn’t see it,” he explained. “The first time we saw it was just as he came over those bumps.

“That’s why he was also blind-sighted. You could see him heading towards it, but it was half a second or a second or so, and it was not enough time for us to get on the radio and tell him there was debris on the track.

“If we had seen it we would have warned him, as we were doing a lot of the other laps with the other accidents. We were trying to guide them as to the best bit of track to avoid it. Unfortunately on this occasion it was all too late.”