Valtteri Bottas will not require surgery on his injured back after being passed fit to race in Malaysia.
The Williams driver will return this weekend after the Finnish driver was forced to withdraw from the Australian Grand Prix after injuring his back during qualifying.
Bottas suffered a tear in the annular part of a disc in his lower back, worryingly it apparently wasn’t due to any particular incident like hitting a high curb or a bump and instead it ‘just happened’ whilst he was out on track.
He subsequently failed the FIA’s extraction test and he wasn’t cleared to race.
On Thursday he underwent further FIA tests to see if he will be passed fit to race this weekend and he was given the green light to do so.
Bottas claims that he is currently pain-free and after some simulation work believes he will not suffer discomfort whilst racing.
?I am completely pain free, at least in normal kind of stuff and we will see while driving, But I am confident, we have done a lot of work with my trainer and a specialist and we have been doing some tests of driving positions and braking forces and I am confident that it will be okay.? Bottas told Sky Sports.
For this weekend Williams have made revisions to the position of his seat and pedals in order to aid Bottas.
When asked directly if he may need an operation to cure the problem he said: ?At this point it doesn?t seem necessary at all, We just need to keep working on the things we think caused this, we have quite a good idea and have changed the seat and pedal positions as well as more focussed training on those critical deep muscles in the lower back and hip area.?
Bottas to avoid surgery
