Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac): F1 Grand Prix withdrawal before the race even began – what happened?

For Finnish F1 driver Valtteri Bottas, the São Paulo Grand Prix was over before it had even begun. The Cadillac driver was removed from the starting grid by his team. For a moment, it looked as though he might still be able to start from the pit lane, but even the equipment in the garage couldn’t resolve the issue. He wasn’t even able to start the Grand Prix. A far too early end to the day for the driver, who is still without any points in 2026.

Bottas on his Interlagos withdrawal: ‘It’s sad’

After his withdrawal, a dejected Bottas said: “It’s sad. It’s a real shame not even to be able to start. It would have been an opportunity.” Given the adverse conditions in São Paulo, with the rain-soaked track, it would have been an opportunity for the underdog to potentially gain positions through experience rather than the car’s performance.

But what exactly went wrong for Bottas? The Finn explained: “We had a problem with the rear-right wheel nut. We couldn’t get it off and in the end it rounded off.” This means that during the tyre change, the wheel nut got stuck in the impact wrench and couldn’t be loosened. And whilst trying to unscrew the wheel nut, it wore down so much that there was no hope of getting it repaired before the start of the race, because the impact wrench could no longer grip it. This is something every amateur DIY enthusiast is probably familiar with – having gone at a stuck screw too aggressively with a cordless screwdriver.

Bottas: Same problem back in 2021 with Mercedes

Bizarre: A similar incident occurred on Valtteri Bottas’s car in Monaco in 2021, when he was still driving for Mercedes. During a pit stop in the middle of the race, a wheel nut also became hopelessly jammed. Bottas had to retire; without the breakdown, he would have had an excellent chance of finishing second. It took a full 43 hours to loosen the wheel, as team principal Toto Wolff later revealed. Now, five years on, Bottas has suffered another wheel nut mishap!

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