2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[Marty_Y]

Who makes the wheel nuts, is it Pirelli or Mercedes that are responsible for them?

This isn't the first time a problem taking off a wheel has cost Mercedes, I wonder if the issue is caused by Mercedes's wheel gun or the wheel nuts themselves?

It was terrible weekend, I just hope Mercedes can bounce back stronger.

[DarthPlagueisTheVise]

Toto talking about the "limbo wing" at 2:38.

[PlatinumZealot]

I feel sorry for Bottas. His championship is basically --- at this point.

[dans79]

Toto talking about the "limbo wing" at 2:38.

I think the more important part is what he said about the front wings. By that I mean that the Red Bull and the Mercedes front wing flex equally.

[DINO3]

Copaslip anyone ?

[joetoml1n]

Who makes the wheel nuts, is it Pirelli or Mercedes that are responsible for them?

This isn't the first time a problem taking off a wheel has cost Mercedes, I wonder if the issue is caused by Mercedes's wheel gun or the wheel nuts themselves?

It was terrible weekend, I just hope Mercedes can bounce back stronger.

Mercedes design and make them. They’re designed to be as light as possible, yet obviously they still have to be secured with enough force and allow for the retaining device, as per the regs (to stop them loosening/coming off on track). Obviously the margins are tight.
Those guns spin at 1000’s of RPM, and although they’re designed to locate easily onto the nut, if there’s not enough force pushing the socket onto the nut it can easily be spat back out. Speaking from personal experience here!
A couple seconds of spin over the sides of the nut will be enough to machine the locating grooves right off, which appears to be what happened.

[Spacepace]

Who makes the wheel nuts, is it Pirelli or Mercedes that are responsible for them?

This isn't the first time a problem taking off a wheel has cost Mercedes, I wonder if the issue is caused by Mercedes's wheel gun or the wheel nuts themselves?

It was terrible weekend, I just hope Mercedes can bounce back stronger.

Mercedes design and make them. They’re designed to be as light as possible, yet obviously they still have to be secured with enough force and allow for the retaining device, as per the regs (to stop them loosening/coming off on track). Obviously the margins are tight.
Those guns spin at 1000’s of RPM, and although they’re designed to locate easily onto the nut, if there’s not enough force pushing the socket onto the nut it can easily be spat back out. Speaking from personal experience here!
A couple seconds of spin over the sides of the nut will be enough to machine the locating grooves right off, which appears to be what happened.

In your opinion do you think Mercedes will reengineer the wheel nuts or is it the fault of the operator

[RZS10]

Apparently Bottas stopped a bit "short" so the mechanic was out of position and made some wrong move and didn't have the gun on properly...

[joetoml1n]

Who makes the wheel nuts, is it Pirelli or Mercedes that are responsible for them?

This isn't the first time a problem taking off a wheel has cost Mercedes, I wonder if the issue is caused by Mercedes's wheel gun or the wheel nuts themselves?

It was terrible weekend, I just hope Mercedes can bounce back stronger.

Mercedes design and make them. They’re designed to be as light as possible, yet obviously they still have to be secured with enough force and allow for the retaining device, as per the regs (to stop them loosening/coming off on track). Obviously the margins are tight.
Those guns spin at 1000’s of RPM, and although they’re designed to locate easily onto the nut, if there’s not enough force pushing the socket onto the nut it can easily be spat back out. Speaking from personal experience here!
A couple seconds of spin over the sides of the nut will be enough to machine the locating grooves right off, which appears to be what happened.

In your opinion do you think Mercedes will reengineer the wheel nuts or is it the fault of the operator

I think it will definitely be looked at. It’s possible to machine different socket grooves or castellations onto the same base nut - meaning no change to wheel rim, hub or possibly even socket.
Of course, there could be a way to improve the design with lessons learned, even if it was human error, as it might be possible to mitigate that in the future by a design change.
Of course, there could have been some other factor. We don’t know if there was debris in there, an over tightening before hand - unlikely on the grid as it’s usually done with a large torque wrench rather than wheel guns (for that reason), but there could have been an outside factor.

[PhillipM]

It was mentioned during the race that the nut simply ripped the threads off the hub itself, rather than the gun knocking the castellations off - in which case it's probably a galling issue with temperature rather than a structural one.

[NL_Fer]

It was mentioned during the race that the nut simply ripped the threads off the hub itself, rather than the gun knocking the castellations off - in which case it's probably a galling issue with temperature rather than a structural one.

I saw picture showing the opposite. The surface of the nut just grinded flat.

[joetoml1n]

It was mentioned during the race that the nut simply ripped the threads off the hub itself, rather than the gun knocking the castellations off - in which case it's probably a galling issue with temperature rather than a structural one.

I saw picture showing the opposite. The surface of the nut just grinded flat.

Yeah I agree, the outside of the nut was heavily damaged. It would have been difficult to damage the thread taking it off as well. Going on there’s always a chance of a cross thread, but coming off not so much. On the grid the nuts are usually hand tightened, and then torqued with a wrench. It’d be hard to damage or cross a thread by hand!

[Marty_Y]

Who makes the wheel nuts, is it Pirelli or Mercedes that are responsible for them?

This isn't the first time a problem taking off a wheel has cost Mercedes, I wonder if the issue is caused by Mercedes's wheel gun or the wheel nuts themselves?

It was terrible weekend, I just hope Mercedes can bounce back stronger.

Mercedes design and make them. They’re designed to be as light as possible, yet obviously they still have to be secured with enough force and allow for the retaining device, as per the regs (to stop them loosening/coming off on track). Obviously the margins are tight.
Those guns spin at 1000’s of RPM, and although they’re designed to locate easily onto the nut, if there’s not enough force pushing the socket onto the nut it can easily be spat back out. Speaking from personal experience here!
A couple seconds of spin over the sides of the nut will be enough to machine the locating grooves right off, which appears to be what happened.

Thanks for replying, very insightful!

The guy on the gun must feel gutted, putting so much practice and preparation into getting the perfect pit stop, and then that to happen. But as you described it only takes a couple of seconds at those high RPM to destroy the nut then you can't do anything with it.

[Jolle]

Who makes the wheel nuts, is it Pirelli or Mercedes that are responsible for them?

This isn't the first time a problem taking off a wheel has cost Mercedes, I wonder if the issue is caused by Mercedes's wheel gun or the wheel nuts themselves?

It was terrible weekend, I just hope Mercedes can bounce back stronger.

Mercedes design and make them. They’re designed to be as light as possible, yet obviously they still have to be secured with enough force and allow for the retaining device, as per the regs (to stop them loosening/coming off on track). Obviously the margins are tight.
Those guns spin at 1000’s of RPM, and although they’re designed to locate easily onto the nut, if there’s not enough force pushing the socket onto the nut it can easily be spat back out. Speaking from personal experience here!
A couple seconds of spin over the sides of the nut will be enough to machine the locating grooves right off, which appears to be what happened.

Thanks for replying, very insightful!

The guy on the gun must feel gutted, putting so much practice and preparation into getting the perfect pit stop, and then that to happen. But as you described it only takes a couple of seconds at those high RPM to destroy the nut then you can't do anything with it.

Good chance the team changed some small movements of the crew because their pitstop times were staying behind of Redbull

[PhillipM]

I saw picture showing the opposite. The surface of the nut just grinded flat.

But that may have simply been from the wheel gun mashing it when it was stuck. Galling is a big issue with these, teams have had many problems before.You don't need it to go on cross threaded for that, the threads literally weld themselves together under the heat and pressure.

Most of the nuts are designed to to lock themselves into the gun with torque applied so I can't see it being anything like the wheelgun guy not pushing enough like some suggested.