Williams’ Valtteri Bottas had a bit of an oops during the Belgian Grand Prix. They had three yellow-banded soft tires and one white-banded medium. Mixing compounds is not allowed, plus Pirelli makes it really easy to spot when you’ve got the wrong one via color codes.
Perhaps Williams needs to hire a technical advisor on this subject. I’d look for a real expert on colors like Big Bird to join the team, with perhaps the Count as an assistant to ensure that you have four yellow tires before you leave the pits.
Bottas lost more time as he had to come back into the pits to fix it, taking on a full set of medium tires that were all the same color this time, thank goodness. He was also given a drive-through penalty for the pit screw-up.
Lotus was all too happy to point out Williams’ boo-boo on Twitter to the parody account of the powers-that-be.
Is “snitches get stitches” not a thing in Formula One? I know they’re less fighty than NASCAR, so perhaps not. Either way, perhaps someone in Martini trim will upper-deck the Lotus garage toilet.
Williams told the Sky Sports broadcast team that they will be looking into the screw-up after the race to ensure they weren’t given a tire out of order somewhere else.
Photo credit: Formula One
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