Ferrari helped Mercedes remove Botta’s wheel nut, but not available

This was Bottas’ second DNF in 5 races, his worst start to the season with Mercedes.

By Sahil Gupta
| Published: 05/26/21 3:39 PM IST

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Bottas had started in P3, but was promoted to P2 after Leclerc’s DNS

The Monaco GP was a pretty uneventful race for the most glamorous race in F1 and perhaps the most famous race in the world. There were two retirements – technically a resignation as Charles Leclerc didn’t even start the race. Valtteri Bottas was the unfortunate recipient of a pit stop mistake by the Mercedes, which led him to withdraw from the race. During the pit stop, his wheel nut refused to come out, which led to his retirement. After the race, Mercedes Technical Director James Allison announced that the wheel was still in the car and could only be removed at the factory. This happened despite unusual support from arch-rivals Ferrari.

Mercedes had a disastrous race when Bottas retired and Hamilton only managed P7.

“The gun made the wheel nut completely round. I’ve never seen anything like it. Nothing is left of it. Valtteri told us he could see the metal chips fly away. The tire is still in the car. Ferrari has us with us too helped. ” some heavy equipment, “revealed Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff.

Allison revealed that if the wheel pistol is not properly connected to the wheel nut, it can flake off the drive surfaces.

“We call it machining the nut. It’s a bit like using a Phillips screwdriver and not getting it straight into the cross of the screwdriver. Given the power of the gun, you can have no drive face and you just machine the nut in one place , which can no longer be grasped, and that’s exactly what we had, “added the Briton, who will be stepping down from his role as technical director at Mercedes in a few months’ time.

Bottas fell behind Lando Norris in the world championship, while Mercedes Red Bull cleared the ground
Photo credit: AFP

Allison will stay with Mercedes and take on a new role – the Chief Technical Officer. He will hand over day-to-day technical operations for the team to Mike Elliot.

Wolff also revealed that the botched pit stop wasn’t entirely the fault of the pit crew, it was Bottas’s as well. Bottas had pulled himself up just before the markings.

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“Valtteri stopped a little early. This meant the mechanic had to put the impact wrench at an angle. The awkward angle damaged the wheel nut and we couldn’t bring it down,” he explained.

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