Ferrari team even tried to remove stuck Mercedes wheel
May 25 - Ferrari tried to help Mercedes mechanics remove the stuck wheel that caused Valtteri Bottas to retire from the Monaco GP.
The odd sight of mechanics unable to get the Finn's wheel off during a pitstop was a major problem for the Brackley based team, as it meant Red Bull sped past in the constructors' world championship.
"The gun made the wheel nut completely round," team boss Toto Wolff told motorsport-magazin.com. "I've never seen anything like it. There's nothing left of it.
"Valtteri told us he could see the metal shavings fly up.
"The tyre is still on the car now," the Austrian added, revealing that after "Ferrari helped us with heavy equipment" like a sledgehammer following the race, the team will have to try again to remove the wheel once back at the factory.
"We have to see whether this is a design error of a failure of several systems," Wolff said.
"It has nothing to do with the mechanic," he insisted. "He is actually one of the best and fittest on the team when it comes to pitstop speed."
He did admit that Bottas' slightly-skewed positioning of his car in the pit area may have been a contributing factor.
"Normally the mechanic doesn't have to be so precise, but the angle was wrong," said Wolff.
Bottas concluded: "It's incredibly disappointing and a situation that must never occur again. It's a big mistake."
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Ah bottas parked the car wrong, i knew it would be his fault. Toto you make me laugh
Usual rubbish mis-quote from shropfried, Toto said he "may have been a contributing factor". Get it right or don't bother.
You fool award, hes ruling out the mechanic error, so the only other HUMAN error can be bottas parking as Tonto SUGGESTS it maybe, anyway why are you so concerned, id have thought yoid be happy if Bottas made another mistake, all your calling for him to be fired sooner rather than late.
You dont do Sarcasm , you dont do Facts, you dont do Consistency
Why do you bother.......
More idiot comments from you, weazeling and squirming again shropfly after misquoting.
You hamilton hate knows no bounds
awardguy, sarcasm is fun, constant mean spirited bludgeoning of other posters is not. Learn the difference, or maybe migrate to Twitter. Your F1 ignorance is massive. Simply disagreeing is not knowledge.
Disagreeing with someone who is wrong and nasty with their every post is never wrong. You seem to think your every post is fun, you are deluded sir.
The Sky announcers said the threads were spun off. Wrong...
The police in Monaco say they are looking for a taxi driver( with an "I love Lulu" sticker in his back window) seen near the mercedes garages with several tubes of superglue
Tonto from Mercedes said in an interview, we StickTogether when things like this happen........
See Sarcasm and Humour....
And anyone thinking im bashing Lucy for no reason
Lewis Hamilton should have taken more responsibility after Mercedes’ flop at Monaco rather than making “pretentious” comments.
That is the view of ex-Formula 1 racer and Dutch Grand Prix promoter Jan Lammers, who felt the seven-time World Champion’s drive to seventh place in Monte Carlo had been distinctly underwhelming, not just the performance of the team.
Even though pole-sitter Charles Leclerc was unable to start the Monaco Grand Prix, Hamilton still finished in the same position in which he had qualified, which appeared to be down to two reasons – overtaking on that circuit being near-impossible and a failed strategy decision to call the Briton in early for hard tyres.
Besides expressing frustration over the team radio, afterwards Hamilton said it had been a “really, really poor performance” the whole weekend by Mercedes – with Valtteri Bottas’ race ruined by a botched pit-stop at which a wheel became stuck, forcing him to retire.
But Lammers, who drove in 23 F1 races, most of them in 1979 for the Shadow team, thought Hamilton should have shown more humility rather than calling out the team the way he did.
“I think his behaviour is pretty inconsistent,” Lammers told RacingNews365.com. “We give him all the credit when he wins, or when he takes pole position.
“Fans and media are full of praise and give him all the plaudits, but then when things don’t go well one weekend, he blames his team. That’s not chic.”
“It went wrong for Hamilton in qualifying,” he added. “He can complain about the team and the strategy and so on, but if he had driven a little bit better on Saturday, the team wouldn’t have had this problem either.
“So the suggestion that he couldn’t have done anything better himself was pretty pretentious. That was just the wrong comment and he didn’t make any fans.”
Of course, it is worth bearing in mind that Lammers has a fellow countryman challenging for Hamilton’s World Championship, with Max Verstappen now four points ahead in the title race.
And unsurprisingly, Lammers is citing the ‘Max factor’ as something which is exerting pressure on the reigning champion.
“Up until now, he [Hamilton] was exemplary and comfortable in the competition with Max, but you get to know him when he has a bad weekend,” stated Lammers.
“He had a bad weekend, himself and the team. If he had just qualified better, the team would not have been so on edge.
“And the fact is he just let [Valtteri] Bottas drive him to ruin. He is criticising the team for bad decisions as a result of his own bad qualifying. I think that’s very wrong.”
Has no one noticed that there was not one pass in the whole race on the track only during pit stops. So what is all this dumping on Hamilton about.
It's not about his performance, he is one of the best. It's about his whining and finger pointing. That, and it is a human characteristic, we create our heroes and then criticize them. Go figure.
I read another comment hamilton said about this , youve probably see it that hed be ON CALLS for the next few days..... and the guy who commented on another f1 forum about this reacted as a lot here are , he said why arent you going to the factory and see the guys etc etc , , no itll probably spoil your holiday or something.... as if to say you arent god , stop acting like one, you self obsessed arse, to put it in good old English, as i say if hes being bashed its his own doing, hopefully at next race hell have less of a holier than thou attitude and remove his head from his own arse, here endeth the rant lol
not if you have to tell us it's sarcasm and humour..
Tonto , if the wheel gun guys cant alter there angle by a few inches then theres something wrong , weve all seen pitstops where the driver hasnt stoped exactly at right point and it all goes fine so come on....
The driver, simply waiting to be released while the mechanics did their work, was completely blameless, right? Wrong, says the Mercedes F1 team principal and co-owner.
“Valtteri stopped a little too early,” said Wolff, quoted by Auto Motor und Sport, indicating he had pulled up slightly short of his marks.
“This meant the mechanic had to apply the impact wrench at an angle. The awkward angle damaged the wheel nut and we couldn’t bring it down.”
But once the mechanic is classed as not at fault easy blame Valterri, Totos talking complete Tosh, it was if anything what cpl of inches
Him and Lulu need to stop going on there storytelling courses
Toto to BOT, "Yes, you've been a good #2 for 4 seasons but we've got a young gun waiting on the sidelines, so tag you're it." I really hope that HAM gets his 100/8 and leaves racing. The totester will be talking a different game.
More hate towards hamilton, the story has nothing to do with him. Your hate knows no bounds.
This blaming Valtery businessis disgusting.... There are four wheel nuts to remove on a F1 car. If Valteri was slightly off his mark, it looks like three mechanics were able to rise to the occasion just the same.
Can you really expect an F1 car in a hurry to stop on a dime. Hey, I remember Lewis stopping at the wrong pit entirely!
f1award commented on May 26, 2021 at 10:23
not if you have to tell us it's sarcasm and humour..
With some people, its so so necessary lol
This may have been a problem with the shoulder of the wheel nut not being machined correctly causing a bevel mismatch between the wheel and the nut. When this occurs on a rotating assembly the two mating surfaces can weld themselves together during rotation. I have had this occur with rotating well drilling assemblies. The mismatch was only 2.5 degrees and so not visible with just visual observation. This could have been a QC error with this wheel nut only as similarly in the drilling assembly we had only one collar with an erroneous bevel with production of hundreds.
Ken , interesting info , but I Definately 100% believe Toto when he said it was Bottases fault lol, no seriously i understand what your saying and yeah it could be that but as you say 1% or less in your exp
https://www.f1-fansite.com/f1-videos/mercedes-2021-monaco-gp-f1-race-debrief/
Not sure how many on the forum ever watch the above debriefs but this one is a peach, check the last 2 mins esp as he says Monaco is probably our weakest circuit.... , theres also plenty of corporate bulls... being spoken , no blame being layed on VB interestingly