All nuts have to have a secondary locking mechanism to prevent them from unwinding when out on track. That was obviously not in place otherwise the nut wouldn't have come off.
The lock is only there to prevent the wheel falling off immediately upon the nut coming loose. It does not prevent the nut coming loose.
It's merely a mechanism to give the driver a chance of slowing or stopping without having a wheel taking to the scenery, as Hakkinen's did at Silverstone or Alboreto's did at Imola.
Thats hilarious. Massa earnt the right to be a ferrari driver. Yes he did he got a todt as his manager otherwise he wouldn't have gotten anywhere. He was erratic, error prone and just about on the verge of the boot from f1. He even came up short against JV struggling with the braking system on the sauber.
He never looked good against any of his team mates.
Capelli had a woeful time in the ferrari but he did far more to deserve that seat than Massa did.
How the hell can you compare a guy who had the championship won until the final corner of the final lap of the final GP to one who couldn't give a single-GP winner even the slightest bit of pressure?
In essence, in terms of results and general luck:
Capelli=Piquet Jnr.
Massa=Mansell
Prior to sitting in that Ferrari he did nothing of note. Nothing sticks in the mind.
Diniz did nothing of note in the Forti, but come him moving to Prost and then Sauber, he quickly became a very decent driver. Nothing that special, but a hell of a big improvement on the vast mediocrity he'd shown previously.
Mika Hakkinen. In the Lotus he was quite promising, but seldom realised any potential he did show. Then in his first race for McLaren he outqualified the best qualifier there has ever been in Formula 1.
Same with Moss. And Rindt. And Scheckter. And Piquet. And Hill.
Some drivers only show their best when they've got a car they're comfortable and confident with under them. That's even clear with Hamilton this year.
I cant remember the exact details - but considering Surtees death and Massa accident, they should be considerably more cautious with ANY kind of potential debris
And disqualifying an entire team from the next GP is going to remove that debris in the previous race?
If they were concerned about debris (and after Imola '94, you could argue they wanted to show a bit of caution so soon after and not end up with an almost sport-destroying catalogue of tragedy) then they should have notified all the teams before the race that driving a damaged car, with potential to shed parts, would be punished harshly.
Suddenly pushing out draconian penalties for events which previously went unpunished is... quite extreme, to be kind.
I suspect the Renault legal representatives will have a field day in Paris.
For the record, Vettel drove around the track for a full 2 laps with his right-front wheel and suspension hanging off the car.
Kimi drove the last 10-15 laps at Nurburgring in 2005 with his right-front threatening to destroy itself.
Kimi again had his exhaust banging off of his own car at Magny-Cours last year for 1/3 of the race before it ended up flying off into the scenery.
Show me another situation where a team has knowingly sent a dangerous car out onto track and made no attempt to prevent it leaving the pit or even inform the driver of the risk....
Well, given that Brawn knew that Rubens had broken rear suspension from the first lap of qualifying... is the day before the incident in question soon enough?
Yes, it would be unfair to suggest that they knew it was apart to rip itself apart and litter the track with 900g springs and the like, but it
was dangerous and they did send him out again regardless... even Barrichello himself said he was struggling to drive it on the straights, nevermind through the corners, so it's hardly a stretch of the imagination to suggest he might have crashed when it did break.
