Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff admitted a problem with a simple stopwatch explained why Nico Rosberg lost too much time serving a penalty during the German Grand Prix.
Wolff told the BBC the team’s mistake had a basic cause. “Believe it or not, even in a Formula One team a stopwatch can fail,” he said. “That’s what happened, so we took it safe.”
Rosberg eventually finished fourth having failed to get ahead of either Red Bull, However Wolff believed “it wouldn’t have changed the race outcome anyway” had the stop been shorter.
After starting from pole position Rosberg endured a difficult race. “Obviously it started with a bad start,” said Wolff. “But then there wasn’t enough pace in his car and on top of that we had a pit stop that was too slow.”
Alex W
31st July 2016, 15:23
I thought i heared him say the stopwatch started at -3!
lockup (@)
31st July 2016, 15:29
Yes, amazing.
pcxmac (@xsavior)
31st July 2016, 16:43
at first I thought someone hit the 8 key, right above the 5 key on a computer number pad. Has Mercedes taken a in race time penalty this season?
Right now it looks like Nico’s car is more susceptible to getting stuck behind other cars. I wonder if he has a different brake setup.
Shminder Chatha
4th August 2016, 4:12
Nico pitted on lap #44.
Of course he had an slower one.
If you know what I mean.
Lol
Tata
31st July 2016, 15:27
I wonder if he was managing the gap then or flat out racing. Incidents like this is why it is sometimes necessary to have a healthy margin of say 7-10 secs.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
31st July 2016, 15:29
Fight would be close without penalty, Riciardo was catching him rapidly.. They would have fought it out on track.
Neel Jani (@neelv27)
31st July 2016, 15:33
Sorry…but it just made me chuckle! :-)
hzh (@hzh00)
31st July 2016, 18:49
It was probably Hamilton’s watch.
banana88x (@banana88x)
31st July 2016, 15:46
I cannot believe a simple stopclock just fails.
I personally believe that they just couldn´t find it :)
ColdFly F1 (@)
31st July 2016, 15:49
my ‘1 Mississippi’ still worked.
x303 (@x303)
31st July 2016, 20:46
Sure, that’s the method adopted by the FIA!
MG421982 (@)
31st July 2016, 15:53
It’s obvious Mercedes is trying everything to give the title to Hamilton. Suddenly all of the bad luck, problems and bad part of the team found home in ROS’ garage. Did you see those pit-stops, 2.6s and 3.5s while 2.5s or less for HAM’s pit-stops?!? This is outrageous!
John H (@john-h)
31st July 2016, 16:04
Can I just attempt a sensible reply at such a comment. I’m not sure whether it’s meant to be sarcastic, but anyway it’s got my attention.
If a team principal informs a mechanic to mess up a tyre change, don’t you think that would be a highly risky strategy for slowing down one of your drivers? If the mechanic went to the press with that it would be an absolute scandal and there are many other easier ways of manipulating a result anyway.
Again, apologies for injecting some common sense if you were indeed being sarcastic.
MG421982 (@)
31st July 2016, 17:09
Yeah, just being ultra-sarcastic! Thanks for bothering to answer tho.
Simon (@weeniebeenie)
31st July 2016, 17:00
@corrado-dub @john-h It’s funny, a few races this was the other way around, Hamilton was getting slower stops and mechanical issues and some suggested Mercedes were favouring Nico.
Have the team switched allegiance or could it just be that, shock of shocks, human errors are random?
MG421982 (@)
31st July 2016, 17:15
Exactly… few races ago things were the other way around. Was just being sarcastic and I hope those who came up with the conspiracy theory that Mercedes is handing over the title to ROS will just stop spamming the threads with ridiculous comments about pit stops differences of 0,1sec… being some sort of conspiracy. I hardly believe the mechanics can “handle” 0,1sec on purpose.
Gabriel (@rethla)
31st July 2016, 16:16
Im pretty sure the problem was with whoever was manning the perfectly fine stopwatch.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
31st July 2016, 19:53
Indeed. It is a poor works man who blames his tools!
Sonics (@sonicslv)
31st July 2016, 16:44
8s is understatement, as I believe the TV showed 12s stationary time..
Alistair C (@agc93)
31st July 2016, 17:19
8 second penalty time, plus 4 second stop makes 12 second stationary time. Looked to me like a problem with a rear tyre, but could also have just been timing issues.
Neil (@neilosjames)
31st July 2016, 17:59
So often the small, inexpensive parts that fail…
I always imagined in such a situation (as in every situation where it’s possible), the teams would have some redundancy… two stopwatches, perhaps.
Gabriel (@rethla)
1st August 2016, 8:45
Redundancy is not an solution when you need to act fast. By the time you realise the first dude has screwed up its already to late. You get only one chance.
Mark in Florida
31st July 2016, 18:53
Apparently it was one of Lewis’s guy’s holding the watch for the pit crew. Ha,ha,ha.
Jay Ay
31st July 2016, 20:34
I guess they tried using the stopwatch that’s on Nico’s left glove :)
Haakon
31st July 2016, 22:27
High end IWC watches…
JayR (@deidunxf1)
31st July 2016, 22:36
Did they stop the start watch?
Traverse (@hellotraverse)
31st July 2016, 22:44
No, they stopped the stop watch from starting rather than starting the stop watch to start the pitstop 5sec stop before the actual pirstop started.
John H (@john-h)
1st August 2016, 11:30
I hope this is a Murray reference :)
PaulK (@paulk)
1st August 2016, 2:26
It was obviously a Tag Heuer watch.
Todfod (@todfod)
1st August 2016, 5:14
Ha! ;)
Sergey Martyn
1st August 2016, 6:13
I’m not Nico’s fan but let’s do a flashmob – send stopwatch to Mercedes!
John Broomfield
1st August 2016, 12:12
Lousy advertising for IWC.
.
PJA (@pja)
2nd August 2016, 13:03
Can you imagine the reaction from the conspiracy theorists if Mercedes had had those stopwatch problems with Hamilton and he had a longer stop than was necessary?
They would have gone into meltdown with about Mercedes wanted Rosberg to win the title and that they were sabotaging Hamilton.
I hope they remember that no matter how good a team is they can always make a stupid mistake and it is not part of some big master plan to fix the result.
ChuckL8
4th August 2016, 4:00
I’m stunned that at an event where the makers of the most expensive timepieces in the world spend millions in advertising, they can’t manage to find a stopwatch that can do what the cheapest plastic Casio can easily do; i.e.; … count-down five seconds accurately.