Valtteri Bottas has shed some light on how he lost control of his Mercedes W12 in the pit lane during Free Practice 2 for the Formula 1 Styrian Grand Prix.

The Finn spun exiting his pit box, sliding to a halt with his nose pointing towards the McLaren garage, mechanics from which then helped him recover.

“We tried something different getting out from the box,” Bottas said post-session when asked about the incident.

“There was some variables to what we normally do with the wheel spin, so that’s why I spun.”

The bizarre moment was investigated by the stewards post-session, with Bottas not expecting to be punished for the mistake.

“I would be surprised if there is, you know, it’s a normal mistake,” he reasoned.

“I’m sure they just want to understand what happened.”

Bottas ended the second practice session in 12th place, 0.8s away from Max Verstappen’s best time of the session.

The Mercedes driver’s best lap was only 0.1s quicker than he’d managed in the opening practice session when the outright pace moved forward by 0.5s.

“Practice 1 overall felt a bit better,” the Finn conceded.

“Practice 2, just have one run with lower fuel level and that was a bit messy, so the lap time on board is nothing amazing.

“But the topic for today was to focus on long runs, trying to find a long run performance. and I think we prioritise that really well today, and hopefully that’ll pay off on Sunday.”

Free Practice 3, is set to being at 20:00 AEST this evening ahead of Qualifying at 23:00.