The deployment of a crane toﷺ recover Valtteri Bottas’ stricken Mercedes Formula 1 car resulted in a full Safety Car period during the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Bottas retired after suffering an engine failure on Lap 52 of Sunday’s race at Interlagos and coasteꦰd to a stop near the 🌄barriers at Turn 4.

Despite parking his car in a safe place, Bo🐟ttas struggled to re-fit the steering wheel and marshals were unable to engage his W10 into neutral and get it over a bump on the crest of an incline where i🐻t had come to rest.

As a result, a crane was required to retrieve the car, which led from the incident being covered by double yellow🍌 flags 😼to a full-on Safety Car.

Since the crash that led to Jules Bianchi’s💙 death at the 2014 Japanese Grand P༒rix, the FIA is obliged to deploy a full Safety Car period if a crane is needed.

“Valtteri did a fantastic job where ✨he stopped,” FIA race director Michael Masi explained.

“It was tr♏ying to push the car back into the gap which is why we w🔯ent double yellow, to help the marshals there.

“The car got stuck on the bump, so we actually had to deploy the crane to move it out. So f🍸or me, as soon as the crane is deployed, that’s it, it’s straight Saf🦩ety Car.

“I think it was a combination of the bump, [Valtteri being in] neutral and in that situation, onc🧸e you’ve got three or four marshals trying to push it and couldn’t get it anywhere, so that’s why we went for the Safety Car.

“The crane completely changes it and because of where it was and being off track was🌞 why it was covered under a double yellow flag originally.”

Asked why the field was under the Safety Car for♏ so long before the back markers were allowed to unlap them♌selves, Masi replied: “Probably the first part of it was actually getting the leader behind the Safety Car, which took a little bit longer purely because of car positioning.

“Then getting the list from timing of all the cars and then putting them in. The first focus is obviously to clear the incid▨ent and the unlapping of cars is a secondary scenario.”

Speaking about his engine problem, Bottas added: “I think ♈there was a bit of smoke. I didn’t actually see it myself, but they reported it to me.

"I couldn’t feel any loss of🔜 power, it’s just the engine switched off afterജ Turn Three.

“I think they [the marshals] couldn’t move the 🗹car, it was kind of stuck bﷺy the floor, so that was the issue.”