Stranded Valtteri Bottas reveals to issuing Mercedes pit stop warning

Mercedes

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Stranded Bottas reveals to issuing Mercedes pit stop warning

Bottas told his team about potential issues

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Thursday 3 June 2021 11:47 Updated: 18:50

Valtteri Bottas has revealed how he had warned Mercedes of potential pit stop drama ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix in which he retired due to a machined wheel nut.

The Finn, who was left stranded in an airport in his homeland for over six hours before finally catching a flight to Baku, heads into this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix 58 points behind Max Verstappen at the top of the F1 drivers' standings.

The Monaco incident was the second pit stop problem suffered by Bottas this season.

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When asked to explain Mercedes' debrief process in the aftermath of the error, the 31-year-old said he had been worried about a pit stop blighting his chances.

"We always analyse everything really openly," said Bottas, speaking via a Zoom call. "Definitely, not blaming any people but just analysing things honestly and admitting weaknesses, which was the pit stop.

"As a matter of fact, it was one of my concerns already a few weeks ago that I raised to the team so it didn't come from out of the blue. We know we are not perfect at pit stops as a team.

"Also in other areas, like tyre warm-up in qualifying, I knew going to Monaco it was going to be an issue and was one of the things I highlighted much before the weekend.

"We analysed everything in detail, we know we probably could have done a better job as a team and with the pit stop, of course, it was a very honest and normal debrief from my side."

Bottas deflects blame for pit stop issue

After the event, Mercedes seemingly put part of the blame on Bottas for failing to stop square in his pit box, meaning the potential for cross-threading a wheel nut would be higher.

Bottas, however, has absolved himself of any blame, stating he thought he was near perfect on his marks.

"I wanted to see all of the reports where I stopped and I think I was like two or three centimetres off the centre line and if you get that accuracy normally, it is pretty good," he explained.

"You can easily swing by 10 to 15 centimetres so I thought it was pretty spot on."

On the work put in ahead of this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Bottas added: "It was a pretty normal debrief, to be honest.

"Of course, we had discussions the week after still with my engineers going through everything and at the factory they have been full gas understanding everything so it is nothing unusual for us.

"It was just a bigger set back than some other weekends for us in terms of result but pretty normal procedure otherwise."