Wolff after Mercedes disaster weekend: "Give me a screwdriver and I'd do the same"
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Mercedes had a weekend to forget in Monaco. Lewis Hamilton finished seventh and Valtteri Bottas was forced out of the race when his pit crew could not remove the right front tyre from the car. According to team principal Toto Wolff, the design of the wheel nut needs to be reviewed.
Mercedes must revise wheel nut design after disastrous pit stop Bottas
Bottas was on course for the podium when he came into the pits on lap 30, but all hopes of a podium finish were dashed when the wheel nut on his right front tyre proved faulty. Wolff says that in any case, the fault does not lie with the mechanic. "Give me a screwdriver and I'll do exactly the same," he says in conversation with Formula1.com. "There are always several factors at play in such a catastrophic failure, and in this case we have to review the design, as well as the material of the wheel nut."
He continued: "The mechanic who did this is one of our best and fittest mechanics in terms of pit stop speed. Multiple things come together, it's never anyone's fault. The story always has multiple sides."
Wolff describes the atmosphere in the Mercedes garage after the race as an emotional rollercoaster. "It's an interesting range of emotions when you realize you've failed. Then comes the anger, and that too is a completely normal phenomenon. You have to be aware of your emotions and then ask yourself what you can do to optimize the situation. And if that's not possible you have to ask yourself how you can avoid this kind of failure in the future," the 49-year-old Austrian said.