After a weekend that saw the two silver arrows struggling in Monaco, their troubles didn’t end there. With Hamilton venting out his frustrations on his team radio after their early pit stop strategy, and Bottas having to retire after a stuck right-front tire in his pit stop; led to Mercedes falling behind Red Bull in the Constructors Championship – the first time in a very long time.
Bottas’ bad luck
Valtteri Bottas had hoped to be standing on the podium today and taking the fight to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen after qualifying P3, and with the added bonus of Charles Leclerc unable to start on pole, gave him an early advantage into P2.
Bottas maintained position after Turn 1, with Verstappen defending and opening up a gap of 5 seconds in the first stint.
The Finn came into the pits on lap 30 to fit the hard compound tire, but an issue meant the team were unable to get the right-front tire off. Despite multiple attempts by the Mercedes pit crew, the problem meant they were forced to retire the car and end his race.
Mercedes have since confirmed that they “cross-threaded a wheel nut” and therefore could not be removed.
In the TV Pen with Formula1.com following his retirement he said,
“I couldn’t believe what happened and it still feels strange that the others are still racing there and I’m here. But you know it happened.
“It is a big mistake by us as a team and we need to learn from it. Whether it was a human error or a technical issue, it doesn’t matter we need to find the solution. If it was a human error we need to support the guy who did it.
“But we need to learn from this that’s the main thing in my mind, at the same time super disappointed.”
This marked Bottas’ second retirement out of the five races so far this season and makes you wonder when will his bad luck end.
You did brilliantly all weekend VB ? we will debrief, learn and move forward to the next one, together ?
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) May 23, 2021
Hamilton’s frustrations
After lacking pace all weekend and a poor qualifying which landed himself in P7, Lewis Hamilton had a lot of work to do today in order to gain positions ahead of some of the mid-field drivers.
The 7-time World Champion remained in P6 (after the retirement of Leclerc) and Mercedes decided to undercut Alpha-Tauri driver Pierre Gasly on lap 29, despite Hamilton saying his tires still felt good.
However, despite a quick 2.2-second pit stop, their strategy did not play out and remained behind Gasly after rejoining the track. Things then went bad to worse for the British driver, in which both Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez were then able to overcut Hamilton and get ahead costing him 3 places; leaving the seven-time champion seventh at the chequered flag.
His frustrations were palpable on his team radio today about how this had played out throughout the race.
A ???? frustrated Lewis Hamilton over team radio today ?#SkyF1 | #F1 | #MonacoGP ?? pic.twitter.com/9Psqm16J3v
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) May 23, 2021
In his post-race interview, Hamilton was asked about his reaction to today’s events in which he said,
“I don’t really have a reaction. I think we do all our talking in the background and we’ll work together, and try to come out stronger. We underperformed as a team all weekend from the get-go. We will just put our focus on the next race.”
Now behind Verstappen in the Driver’s Championship, he will want redemption in Baku after today’s events.
Toto’s thoughts
After an off day for Mercedes, Team Principal Toto Wolff told Sky F1:
“We lacked the pace this weekend. It’s as simple as that. The pit stop failure that we had is something we need to understand, we completely machined the wheel nut, and we just didn’t have the pace in the car.
“The undercut looked like the only feasible way of clearing Gasly with the tire warm-up. Just to get the hit before the 1/1.5 seconds was sufficient for him to stay ahead. There wasn’t any mistake, the outlook was good, the pit stop was okay, but just wasn’t enough.
“You have to take it on the chin. Today we lost a few points. This is a long championship, where it can swing either way and in the end, we will see in Abu Dhabi who will have the nose ahead.
In 2 weeks time, we are racing in Baku and it will be interesting to see how this Championship battle continues.
Headline Image: Credit – Mark Thompson, Source – Getty Images