Bottas thought Monaco GP win was on before “big mistake” at pitstop
Bottas was promoted to second place with polesitter Charles Leclerc unable to take the race start and the Finn looked tꦇo challenge Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for the win.
But any hopes of a first🎃 victory for the Finn in&n♊bsp;2021 were dashed with a disastrous pit stop at the end of Lap 30.
Mercedes was unable to get Bottas♎’ front-right tyre off his car due to a cross-threaded wheel nut and after a number of failed atte🍰mpts to remove the wheel, the team was left with no option but to retire the car.
“I don't know what happened in the pitsဣtop to be honest,” said ꦗBottas. “I don't know yet if it was human error or a technical issue.
“But, in any case,ꦉ we need to learn from it𒊎. It's a big mistake by us and it should not happen.”
It is the second time that Bottas has retired from a race in the opening five rounds of the season and the result means he has fallen behind McLaren’s Lando Norris to fourth place in the �🍷�championship.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said it seems like Bottas is “cursed” and revealed that the ဣteam has no idea what caused the problem, addingꦫ the tyre is still attached to the car.
“We need to look whether it’s a design issue or if we had a catastrophic fa🐻ilure of a few systems,” said Wolff.
“We just machined the whole nut off,💟 I’ve never seen anything like this, there was no part there anymore.
“The tyre is still on the car, Ferrari is going to help us out with some heavy equipment, a big ha༒mmer or saw. It’s never happened❀ to us before.”
“Very frustrating for him, because it seems he’s cursed. Valtteri said he saw the alumin꧟ium bits fly off in the front.”
Without the botched pit stop, Bottas i🎃s convinced he had the pace to challenge for the win despite dropping five sec🅰onds behind Verstappen at the time he stopped.
“I think otherwise we could have fought for the win,” heꦅ explained.
“Red Bull and Max, they were really quick, so it wou꧒ld have been difficult, but at least we𒆙 could have gotten a second place today with good points but we lost them.
“Max was quick and I think they managed to get the soft tyre to last a bit longer in the first stint and once🔴 you get onto the hard tyre there's not 🌱much happening.
“I don't ♓know. We'll never know if we could have challenge♈d or not.”
Lewis 🍃regularly attends Grands Prix for wuqian0821.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the storꩵies of the people who matter in the sport.
