Bottas: "It was great to be back in the car again"

Valtteri Bottas came back into action today for the first time in a long time, this time at Silverstone in preparation for the coming season. Here he stepped into the older Mercedes W09, as it's not allowed to drive the newest car until the season starts. Nevertheless, the team has learned a lot, also because of new coronavirus protocols.

Useful day

In order to prevent any chance of corona spreading or contamination, all kinds of measures will apply in and around the paddock. This will result in different working conditions and Mercedes was keen to try out how this works in practice. So far so good noises about social distancing, wearing mouth caps and more.

Bottas says at Autosport: "Today I think it was a very helpful day for the team. Obviously everyone being out from racing and the garage environment for a long time, and there are many new regulations, and we need to be cautious with different things for health. It was good to practice that."

"I think we learned a lot during the day, how to do things more efficiently and make sure everyone is going to be safe once we eventually start racing. I loved to be back in a car, and now I can't wait for Austria, and to be back racing again very soon."

Security measures

Mercedes tested everyone who went to Silverstone today and all the staff was negative on corona. During the day, all staff wore mouth caps and those who had close contact with Bottas, who had a larger face shield.

Tomorrow Mercedes will be back on the track, but instead of Valtteri Bottas, it will be Lewis Hamilton who will be behind the wheel. Ferrari will soon test where McLaren and Red Bull Racing don't have that possibility.