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Williams worried by Bottas seatbelt issue
Williams has admitted that the seatbelts coming loose on Valtteri Bottas's car at the Singapore Grand Prix is 'quite a worry', as it vows to find out exactly what happened.
Jonathan Noble
Edited: May 5, 2021, 4:31 PM
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Bottas was forced into the pits just past the halfway point of the race after his seat belt worked loose and needed to be tightened.
Williams performance chief Rob Smedley said: “His seatbelt came undone. He told us on whatever lap it was, so we pitted immediately and did them up again in the pits.
“We need to understand why they have come undone, because it is really quite a worry in itself that seatbelts come undone while they are driving at these sort of speeds.”
Bottas had a previous incident at the 2014 Brazilian Grand Prix when his seatbelts also came loose, but Smedley insists that the two incidents are not related.
“I don't think it is a similar issue, but it was a seatbelt issue,” he said. “As usual we just have to go away and do the correct analysis and due diligence.
“But the main thing is that we fix it for Malaysia and see what it was. We have done all the season without the seatbelts coming undone in the practice or race or anything like that, so it is a bit of a worry that it suddenly just happened.”
Triggered retirement
Bottas’s hopes of a good result in Singapore were effectively dashed at the first corner when he was hit from behind by Jenson Button and suffered a puncture.
Despite having a new tyre fitted, damage to the car affected the aero balance – which in turn made it difficult for him to manage the tyres properly.
But it was the seatbelt incident that ultimately put him out of the race.
Smedley explained: “When he pulled away, he dumped the clutch inadvertently, with the length of the pit stop, and that put quite a big over-torque on first gear.
“We weren't happy, in the position we were in, to run on because if the first gear ratio had failed it could have caused untold damage in the box. So the best thing to do was to just stop.”
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