Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes W16 shut down at Imola after a throttle system fault triggered an automatic safety shutdown mid-race.
Mercedes F1 has explained the reasons behind Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s retirement. Andrew Shovlin, the trackside engineering director, detailed that it was a throttle spring issue. However, this problem was not the direct cause of the retirement, as it simply led the car to stop by itself, overwhelmed by technical issues.
“We didn’t dig too deep into it, but it was relatively easy to identify the faults that caused the problem. It was a throttle damper issue. We saw on the car that, from time to time, it wasn’t applying full throttle,” Shovlin said.
“Nowadays, we can run routines that allow us to recalibrate these sensors live while driving, but ultimately, it’s a major safety issue if the throttle doesn’t function properly.”
“What actually stopped it was the car’s system deciding there were enough problems to cut the throttle signal. And that, obviously, is what brought the car to a halt. With the fault we had, we wouldn’t have finished the race anyway, so we always tend to err on the side of caution.”
The team will first ensure the issue doesn’t reoccur, and if there is a structural defect, it will be addressed longer term: “We’ve identified the assembly in question. It’s been returned to us. We have it here in Brackley. They’ve even started disassembling it.”
“The investigation is ongoing, and it’s unlikely that the issue will be difficult to fix for Monaco. However, it’s not guaranteed that we won’t introduce design changes for future races. So, in the short term, we’ll contain the issue, but in the longer term, there may be a design change.”
Russell Senses Pre-Race Trouble
Mercedes also checked George Russell’s car, as the Briton experienced a warning before the race: “He mentioned there was an issue on the laps to the grid before the start. It’s not always easy to get a good read on balance during those grid laps.”
“But that said, the drivers are pretty good at telling us what they’re feeling, they’re usually quite reliable. All we can do on the grid is take off the bodywork, have a quick look, and check that nothing obvious is wrong.”
“We only have a few minutes, and we didn’t see anything that looked like an issue. The car was very good at the end of qualifying and we hadn’t made any changes overnight. Heading into the grid laps, you’d have thought everything would be fine. But there was something he was picking up on, and it persisted into the race.”
“We now have the car and all parts in Monaco; there’s a good program in place to check components, scan what needs scanning, and ensure there’s no delamination or anything else. We’ll make sure everything is done properly and that if there’s a problem, we fix it before the Monaco race.”
- Discover More>F1 Stars React as Brad Pitt’s Racing Film Debuts
- Following us on>Facebook and>Twitter