The Finn had to retire at the Monaco GP after Mercedes was unable to remove its front right tire during a stop.
The wheel nut face had been trimmed after the gun was skewed and the team could not remove the wheel until it returned to its Brackley base.
Mercedes felt that the slight angle caused by Bottas arriving in his pit was one factor in the gun not going straight, but the Finn wasn’t that convinced he’d done anything out of the ordinary.
When asked if he was surprised that Mercedes took him out of his position, Bottas said: “Yes, I was surprised. I saw the video and for me it was pretty much right where I left off so I was pretty surprised. “
Bottas said the data he saw at the Monaco GP debrief showed he was just inches away – which is well within normal tolerance limits.
“We have analyzed everything in detail and we know that we could probably have worked better as a team, and with the pit stop it was of course completely normal to have a debrief on my part,” he said.
“Of course I wanted to see all the reports about where I left off. I think I was two or three inches from the center line. And if you get that accuracy normally, it’s pretty good. You know, you can easily swing 10-15 centimeters, so I thought it was pretty much right. “
Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12 wheel nut detail
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Bottas also announced that he was concerned about possible weaknesses in Mercedes’ pit stop procedures ahead of the Monaco GP.
“It was one of my concerns a few weeks ago that I raised with the team,” he said. “So you know it didn’t come out of the blue, we knew we weren’t perfect in pit stops as we’ve seen.
“And also other areas such as warming up the tires in qualifying. When I got to Monaco I knew it was going to be a problem and it was one of the things that I highlighted a lot before the weekend. “
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Bottas said Mercedes, however, had learned important lessons from the Monaco issue that should help prevent a repeat in the future.
“We as a team had to maximize the learning from it,” he said. “There was of course a detailed analysis of what happened, why it happened and how we can prevent it [so it] never occurs again in the future.
“So it’s really about learning the problem and correcting it. I think the team has now fully understood and we have made corrections and hopefully don’t have to go through it again. “
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