Was Bottas doomed to lose at Mugello?

Valtteri Bottas had three chances to win an incident-packed Tuscan GP at Mugello, but familiar problems meant his 'part one' victory counted for nothing and smoothed the way for Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to score his 90th F1 victory

Alex Kalinauckas Sep 14, 2020, 9:12 AM

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Formula 1 was only racing at Mugello because of the freak nature of 2020 and the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This MotoGP paradise had held testing back in 2012 and is owned by Ferrari, which secured the inaugural Tuscan Grand Prix when F1 was redrawing this year's calendar, and it opted to celebrate its 1000th world championship race (after massaging of entry definitions) at the track.

Mugello is tricky for the drivers and engineers, and it is vicious, ready to bite the slightest mistake with its close gravel traps and narrow, high-speed nature - only Monza and Silverstone have faster average laps. Intrigue was high as to what kind of race this would produce.

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Author Alex Kalinauckas

Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.

A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.