Valtteri Bottas' poor luck is a bad joke - it could have consequences for his future

[ASFN Admin]

If it wasn’t for bad luck, Valtteri Bottas would have no luck at all. He must be starting to wonder whether he was born under a bad sign. At the Monaco Grand Prix things reached a new low. Running a creditable second behind Max Verstappen he was, for once, Mercedes’ only hope of victory and even a podium. For once, Lewis Hamilton – half a second down in qualifying and running a distant sixth – was not in Bottas’s league. The Finn’s hopes and his race were ended at a calamitous pit stop. What normally would take around three seconds lasted an eternity, with the front right wheel stuck, the wheel gun shredding the threads on the nut, shards of metal flying everywhere. Anyone who has rounded an Allen bolt head can sympathise, but this was a galaxy level mechanical snafu. The panicked mechanics persisted in the hope that something could be done, but as of Monday afternoon the wheel was unbelievably still on the car, which is more than can be said for his championship hopes. The only word on the team radio from Bottas in the whole 90-second saga was a simple, “guys…?”. It said little and everything at once.

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