Center Lock Wheel Nut is STUCK

[SubLGT]

Valtteri Bottas' wheel nut still stuck on Mercedes F1 car

www.motorsport.com

Bottas ran second through the opening stint of Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, sitting five seconds behind leader Max Verstappen when he came into the pits on Lap 30 to change tyres......But Mercedes was unable to get the front-right tyre off Bottas’s car, leaving him stuck in the pits...

Mercedes technical director James Allison explained how the nut had become machined to the axle by the wheel gun, causing it to get stuck.
“If we don’t quite get the pitstop gun cleanly on the nut, then it can chip away at the driving faces of the nut,” Allison said.
“We call it machining the nut. It is a bit like when you take a Phillips head screwdriver, and you don’t get it squarely in the cross of the screwdriver.

“Given the power of the gun, you can end up with no driving face and you just machine the nut down to a place where there is nothing left to grab a hold of, and that is what we had today.” Allison revealed that Mercedes was unable to get the wheel nut off the car at all, requiring a high-power drill to make the removal back at the factory.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said that there were “many factors” that contributed to the issue, refusing to put it down to a single error.
“We need to review the design, we need to review the material of our wheel nut, because the mechanics that operate the wheel nuts need to do it in a way that you can’t machine it off,” Wolff said.
“And as a matter of fact, a mechanic that did that is one of the best, and one of the fittest in terms of pitstop speed, that the team has.
“So there are always things coming together. It’s never someone’s fault, it’s always multi-faceted.”

A F1 wheel gun puts out 2200 ft-lb of torque !!

Wheel Gun & Wheel Nut

www.formula1-dictionary.net

 

[B1974]

Was a bad weekend for both Mercedes cars with Lewis finishing in 7th.

 

[Hall]

I thought they could do 10,000 ft/lbs putting them on or 2,000 ft/lbs for removing ? Then again, the numbers I saw may have been the metric values.

Not sure if Mercedes has a unique nut design but it just looks overly complicated (and expensive to machine).

 

[JohnnyG]

Lefty loosey!
My guess is it's crossthreaded.

 

[555]

Mercedes has a complicated hub design which some teams(especially Red Bull)say should not be allowed. Perhaps that contributed to the issue. Another nebulous comment with no data. You're welcome LOL

 

[Vercingetorix]

And Toto throws Valterri under the bus!

Formula 1: Toto Wolff reveals Valtteri Bottas was slightly to blame for Monaco retirement — GIVEMESPORT

Wolff says Bottas didn't hit his pit-stop markers in the right place

apple.news

 

[Hall]

I saw that mentioned last night or this morning.

“This meant the mechanic had to apply the impact wrench at an angle. The awkward angle damaged the wheel nut...."

That's a lame excuse especially when he also says "the mechanic that did that is one of the best" yet he couldn't adjust/adapt ?

 

[Vercingetorix]

Toto is still in Kansas, not Monaco

 

[SubLGT]

Mercedes F1 reveals video of Bottas wheel removal

www.motorsport.com

... Mercedes head of strategy James Vowles noted that problems at stops were not unusual, given the fine margins involved.

"The whole process is one and a half seconds, that’s it,” said Vowles. "That’s the process of removing a nut, changing a wheel and refitting the new nut.

Vowles explained that the Monaco problem occurred because the wheelgun was presented at a slight angle, and that the issue would be addressed for future races.

"Our nuts are what we call captive, they are maintained within the wheel and the tyre, so as the wheel comes off the nut goes with it,” he noted.

"This nut has to hold a wheel to the car such it can cope with 5g forces in braking and laterally as well.

"It’s a huge amount of force going through the axle and the nut and clearly we can never have it coming loose. So, the gun is an incredibly powerful gun, such that you can actually see the mechanics having to restrain themselves, holding themselves to the ground, otherwise they get rotated with it at the same time.

"Now, what happened is we came on slightly angled, so when the socket was now connected to the nut, it slightly angled relative to it and as a result of that, now instead of distributing the load across all of the nut it was across a small section and that tore the metal clean off and in fact all of the metal was now removed from the nut.

"As a result of that, the nut was in place and we were unable to remove it.

 

[555]

I saw that mentioned last night or this morning.

“This meant the mechanic had to apply the impact wrench at an angle. The awkward angle damaged the wheel nut...."

That's a lame excuse especially when he also says "the mechanic that did that is one of the best" yet he couldn't adjust/adapt ?

So much pressure for that 2 second mark on pit stops. If the mechanic adapts, the pit stop takes more time for removal and to put on new wheel/tire assembly. I agree with you but in that position everything has to be just so.

 

[Hall]

3 other mechanics adjusted just fine....