Bottas confident car changes will help his back

Valtteri Bottas has been passed fit to race by the FIA, and the Finn is confident that he won't have any more problems.

Williams has adjusted the seat and pedal positions in order to put less pressure on his back.

“It's good, no pain, so that's nice,” he said. “The end of last week I could do something without pain, and during the weekend I could do some training, swimming and cross training, without any pain. The recovery was really good. We did everything we can in this short period of time, but luckily it was two weeks, and I feel confident to go back in the car.”

Regarding the cause he said: “We have a good idea, so we have changed the seat and pedal position quite a reasonable amount so the back is in a more neutral position in the car, so less pressure for the discs. We're confident that it should be it.

“I've never had any problems before with the lower back, and obviously that kind of thing takes a bit of time to build up. There was no warning, it just went suddenly, I never had any pain before. It was maximum braking into Turn 13, and it was the last timed lap of qualy 2. I really felt like someone had put in a knife, and then it was ramping up, the pain, until midnight. Luckily then it started to ease off during the night and then in the morning I would have been ready to race.”

Bottas said he wanted to race but had to accept the FIA decision.

“I passed the tests, but they had all the access to the material we got from the hospital, the MRI and all that stuff, and maybe they thought it was just better in the longer term. Which could be true, but it as very disappointing  not to able to race, but I respect the decision from the FIA. Now they say I'm feet to race, which I also feel, which is good.”