Ferrari Wheel Nut innovation stopped Massa from better finish

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Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was looking extremely well throughout the 2011 Formula 1 German Grand Prix weekend as he secured the 5th place on the grid and during the final stages of the race, he was ahead of the reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel in 4th place.

The two drivers kept fighting for the 4th place for around 15 laps after which both of them had to make their final pit stop during the final lap.

It was one of the most exciting moments of the race when Ferrari and Red Bull Racing had a ‘pit race’ during the last lap of the race after which Massa lost his 4th place as the RBR made a quicker stop than Ferrari.

In the race for faster stops, Ferrari introduced the new nut for Silverstone, where it contributed to fast stops.

It also worked well for the first five of the six stops at the Nurburgring, but not for Massa’s last lap stop, costing him fourth place to Sebastian Vettel.

“It was a problem of the nut on the front left tire that went disconnected from the wheel gun,” said Stefano Domenicali in Germany. “That is something that is part of this game. We are stretching everything up to the limit to minimize the pit stop time. In this case it was a problem on the technical side.”

Silverstone was the first race we ran with a completely new specification of wheel nut, which has been very interesting, because in the British Grand Prix, our pit stops were the quickest in the race.

“Then, in Germany, we were again using this new wheel nut, which does work better, but the system is still not perfect and, at Felipe’s last tire change, we lost the connection between the wheel nut and wheel nut gun, which cost us around one and a half seconds. So we have more work to do on perfecting it.”

What Brazilian Driver, Felipe Massa has to say:

“Sure, I would have preferred to have stayed ahead of the World Champion right to the end. But at the final pit stop there was a problem with the wheel nut on the left rear which cost me a few seconds: these things happen and recrimination achieves nothing,” said Massa.

Either way, Massa admitted that it was an exhilarating race and that he enjoyed his battle with Sebastian Vettel for the 4th place. If Massa finished ahead of the current championship leader, then Vettel’s lead would have decreased by two more points which would have been quite useful for his rivals Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

“I got away well at the start, but then Vettel closed the line on the inside and I tried to go round the outside, because there was nowhere else to go if I wanted to make up some places. In fact I actually lost one to Rosberg,” said the Brazilian driver.

Nevertheless, one has to admit that Massa did a great job in holding Vettel back and in the process, proved that he still has the ability to compete alongside the top runners of the sport.