After wheel nut problems caused long stoppages for Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain and Zhou Guanyu in Jeddah, the team made what it called “containment” changes for Melbourne, aiming to reduce the risk of additional problems.
However, in Melbourne, Bottas suffered another problem which cost him 28 seconds and deprived him of a chance to score points, as he was ahead of both Haas drivers at that time.
On this occasion, the wheel nut came out of the gun and rolled into the fast lane and therefore potentially into the path of other cars, leading to a report to the FIA stewards for safety reasons.
After investigating the matter, they ruled that “the team lost control of a wheel nut during a pit stop, causing a potentially dangerous situation in the pit lane during the race”, and imposed the fine.
Although it had not happened on previous occasions, Sauber race director Xevi Pujolar denied that the loss of the wheel nut was the result of the team’s changes since Jeddah.
“It shouldn’t have happened, but we didn’t make any changes that caused this to happen,” he said when asked by Autosport about the latest incident. “What we saw in free practice and pit stops, we were reasonably confident that today everything should go well.”
Valtteri Bottas, Kick Sauber F1 Team C44, arrives for a pit stop
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Pujolar admitted that the recurrence of the problem was costing the team dearly.
“From the first race we found some problems with the pit stops, with the crossed wire,” he said. “It’s something we don’t find when we do free testing, or even during the winter, we haven’t found a problem.” issue.
“But every time we find ourselves in a racing situation, it becomes more critical. We took confinement this week, some small modifications. It’s not sturdy enough and we had a pit stop problem.
“As long as we have this problem, it becomes very difficult for us. It’s not the crew’s problem, the crew does everything right.
“We have a problem with the hardware, and we just need to make sure we have time to find this solution and the parts and we will try to fix it for Suzuka.”
However, Pujolar acknowledged that “the final solution will take a little more time.”
Zhou also suffered a pit stop delay in Australia, but this was due to a gearbox problem which was part of changes to driver procedures for “containment” measures.
