Williams fined £60,000 for loose wheel nut

Williams have been fined £60,000 for releasing Maldonado with a loose wheel nut. This is the second incident in as many races where the wheel nut fell off from Maldonado’s crash with the Venezuelan encountering the same issue is Japan a fortnight ago.

The official statement read ”Examination of the parts concerned revealed that the wheel fastener had been cross threaded, thus not engaging in the primary retaining plunger.

This is a breach of Article 23.12 of the FIA Sporting Regulations as the car was released in an unsafe condition”The Stewards also took into account that Williams had a similar issue in Japan but this time, ”the wheel had been retained on the car”. The statement further read ”Whilst the Stewards accept that improvements to the wheel retaining system had been implemented the team need to ensure that both the wheel and its fastener are fully retained on the car.”