After a boring race yesterday in Monaco, surprising news surfaced. The tire nut on Bottas’s car had not yet been removed.
Written by Bruna Brito, Edited by Esmée Koppius
Despite the best of efforts, including trying a backup wheel gun, Mercedes’ pit stop crew couldn’t take off the wheel nut from the front-right tyre of Bottas’s car.
Unfortunately Valtteri Bottas pitted from the second place at the Monaco Grand Prix, and was out of the race at the 31st lap, and hasnt had the same “luck” as his teammate Sir Lewis Hamilton, who had a quick pit stop.
However, teamboss Toto Wolff believes Bottas had a bit of fault at the incident, “- Valtteri stopped long before (from the designated location). This means that the mechanic had to use a pistol at an angle. This unusual angle damaged the nut, making the task of removing it impossible”.
“We didn’t take the wheel off. The car is still in the garage with a clamping wheel. It will have to be sawn, but we will do it at the factory. If the fitting of the gun with the nut is not ideal, you end up damaging the contact surface. It’s like using a “philips wrench” that doesn’t fit right on the left. You end up damaging the bottom head, making it impossible to turn it because the area of contact with the key has been destroyed. The same can happen with our nuts when a pistol comes to the surface of the nut. With the power of the pistol, you end up with a smooth, non-stick surface. That’s what happened at the pit stop” – says Allison to ‘Motorsport.com’.
Overall it wasn’t the best weekend for the Mercedes team, with all the mistakes and rotten luck of a driver DNF, now the Constructor Championship has a new leader. Red Bull is leading by 1 point, and 4 points is the difference between the seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton and the Dutch orange lion, Max Verstappen.
Mercedes track engineer Andrew Shovlin explained the team’s next steps. “We have a busy week ahead of us, as we need to overcome many of our problems before the next race in Baku. However, our difficult days always lead us to learn and improve and we are looking forward to getting back on track in a few days ”.
Do you think the Mercedes Dominance Era is over?
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