凯迪拉克查明博塔斯墨西哥撞车原因并回退悬挂规格
凯迪拉克F1车队在查明博塔斯墨西哥站撞车原因后，决定回退一款悬挂部件的规格。博塔斯表示腿部肌肉挫伤已“完全恢复正常”，本周末可以正常参赛。
凯迪拉克F1车队在查明上周末瓦尔特利·博塔斯在墨西哥戏剧性撞车的原因后，正在回退一款悬挂部件的规格。
博塔斯在墨西哥站第一个弯道左前悬挂失效，赛车倒退着撞上缓冲区深处的护墙，因此退赛。
幸运的是，博塔斯避免了严重到造成重大持久损伤的撞击。他周四在巴西透露，事发后他立即感到疼痛——当时他在无线电里一反常态地大声喊叫，并留在车内与FIA医疗团队交流——是因为赛车撞上护墙时他的右腿撞到了方向盘。
这让博塔斯留下了一些肌肉挫伤，他说现在感觉“已经完全恢复正常”，而且本周末重新坐进赛车没有问题，因为凯迪拉克已经查明了原因。
这与塞尔吉奥·佩雷斯在加拿大因制动导管热风泄漏导致前悬挂故障的情况类似，博塔斯的问题源于制动器产生的热量“传到了叉臂”。
无论如何，与佩雷斯相比，他的驾驶风格在制动器上倾向于产生更高的温度，但主要问题似乎是墨西哥赛道的挑战超出了凯迪拉克设定的容差范围，并且“在红色区域运行时间过长”。
在英特拉格斯赛道，由于这条赛道对制动和冷却的需求较低，这种情况不应重演，但凯迪拉克还是采取了必要的纠正措施作为预防，之后博塔斯表示需要“为未来进行良好的重新设计”。
“我们在温度方面确实有过某些限制，但我们不得不重新审视这些限制，”博塔斯说。
“我们不得不把一些部件改回旧规格。而且我们还不得不调低这些部件可以运行的温度上限。”
当被 The Race 问及那次规格变更时，博塔斯澄清道：“只是叉臂安装座的问题，是的。而且我们已经降低了限制，这在这里应该不成问题。”
“我们原以为那是安全的，但我们从未通过让它在那个温度下运行那么长时间来测试过。”
他补充道：“根据这里的天气预报，我认为我们应该没问题。”
“但他们在工厂还在用悬挂右侧部件做更多测试，那个部件现在已经回到银石了。”
“所以他们在做一些应力测试，并试图获得更精确的温度限制。”
博塔斯今年有一些令人沮丧的比赛表现，直接原因是不得不进行大量温度管理。
这对凯迪拉克来说一直是个以不同方式反复出现的问题，博塔斯似乎受影响更大，这无助于他对阵佩雷兹，后者被广泛认为是表现明显更好的凯迪拉克车手。
博塔斯几周前在美国大奖赛上表示，考虑到凯迪拉克作为新加入者的身份以及本赛季糟糕的可靠性记录，他认为评判这两位车手是“不可能的”——考虑到目前有关于他在车队未来的猜测，这一点尤为重要。
凯迪拉克正在努力确保科尔顿·赫塔获得F1超级驾照资格，尽管博塔斯签有多年合同，其他车手也一直在游说争取车队的比赛席位。
因此，博塔斯反复面临关于自己未来的问题，这种情况在英特拉格斯再次出现——他在那里表示“至少每个人都能看到我们面对的情况——许多问题和许多退赛”。
“而且不知为何，我的车在墨西哥温度更高，”博塔斯说。
“所以这意味着我必须做更多的管理，更多的抬油门滑行。而且即使我做了，我们仍然出现了故障。
“所以就今年表现的评价而言，并不是那么直接明了。”
博塔斯表示“懂的人自然懂”，并重申他从凯迪拉克及其多数股东TWG那里得到的信息是，他做得很好。
他预计自己的未来将在包括共同所有者通用汽车在内的董事会会议上得到正式确认，并且对他未来以及其他人候选资格的“大量噪音”感到“相当惊讶”。
“我所听到的一切都是，车队对我正在做的事情感到满意，”他说。
“但与此同时，我们知道这个世界是如何运作的。尤其是现在，每个人都想进入一级方程式。
“如果有人在某处看到了机会，他们就会想方设法去争取，无论以何种方式。
“但按照我们车队的架构方式，以及为未来做决策的方式，一切都需要得到董事会的批准。
“我相信那次会面还没有发生。但我一直确信没有任何变化。所以这就是我们目前的状况。”
尽管博塔斯觉得自己本赛季承担了车队大部分的问题，佩雷斯也经常直言凯迪拉克需要改进的地方还有很多。
不过，佩雷斯最近已将他的凯迪拉克合同延长至2029年，他在队内的位置似乎一直稳固得多。他出色的表现有时也让他有底气非常直率地谈论车队的发展曲线。
与此同时，博塔斯正在等待确认最初让他保留比赛席位的计划会得到履行，更不用说同意一份新合同了。
他说，凯迪拉克所处的局面，包括种种困难以及“他们并没有真正给我一辆能让我大有作为的赛车”这一事实，“一直是我第一年所预料的”——并称墨西哥站是一个“很好的例子”，说明凯迪拉克“目前要解决的问题比车手问题更大”。
博塔斯补充说，他对今年的预期“绝对不是一种为保住席位而战的心态”，当《The Race》提出，把他请来是为了经验和长期进步、随后却判定其表现不符合凯迪拉克的期望会略显奇怪时，他回答说：“我同意。那会非常奇怪。
“所以这就是为什么我不认为我的处境会有任何改变。
“这差不多一直就是约定。整个赛季我一直在真正遵循指令。有时候非常清楚，我只是努力把赛车带到终点线。
“但当然，总有一些人从外部观察，他们或许并不了解全局。然后你就会受到批评，这在赛车运动中很正常。”
“最重要的是我们知道自己的位置。我知道我的工作是什么。如果他们对我有进一步的要求，我相信他们会告诉我。”
英文原文
The Cadillac Formula 1 team is rolling back the specification of a suspension component after diagnosing the cause of Valtteri Bottas’s dramatic crash in Mexico last weekend.
Bottas shunted out of the Mexico race when his front left suspension failed at the first corner, sending the car backwards into the barrier deep into the run-off.
Fortunately, Bottas avoided a heavy enough hit to do significant lasting damage, as he revealed on Thursday in Brazil that his pain immediately afterwards - when he was uncharacteristically loud on the radio, and stayed in the car speaking to the FIA medical team - was because he banged his right leg against the steering wheel when the car made contact with the wall.
That left Bottas with some muscle bruising that he says feels “completely normal already”, and he has no issue getting back into the car again this weekend because Cadillac has already identified the cause.
Similar to when Sergio Perez suffered a front suspension failure in Canada due to a leak of hot air from brake ducts, Bottas’s problem arose from running heat from the brakes “going to the wishbones”.
He tends to run a bit hotter on the brakes with his driving style compared to Perez anyway, but the primary issue seems to be the Mexico challenge exceeding what Cadillac had set its tolerances to and “running too long a time in the red zone”.
This should not be repeated at Interlagos with less of a braking and cooling demand at this track, but Cadillac has taken the necessary corrective action as a precaution anyway before what Bottas said needs to be “good redesigning for the future”.
“We did have certain limits when it comes to temperatures, but we’ve had to review those,” Bottas said.
“We’ve had to revert some parts to older spec. And also we’ve had to revert the limits on temperatures that we can run on those.”
Asked by The Race about that spec change, Bottas clarified: “It’s just the wishbone mountings, yeah. And we’ve lowered the limits, which shouldn’t be an issue here.
“We thought it was safe, but we never tested by running it so long at that temperature.”
He added: “Based on the forecast here, I think we should be OK.
“But they’re still doing more testing at the factory with the right side of the suspension, that is now back in Silverstone.
“So they’re doing some stress testing and trying to get more accurate temperature limits on those.”
Bottas has had some demoralising race performances this year caused directly by having to engage in a lot of temperature management.
It has been a recurring issue for Cadillac in different ways, with Bottas seemingly more affected, which has not aided his cause against Perez, who is widely regarded as being the better performing Cadillac driver by some margin.
Bottas said at the United States Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago that he felt it was “impossible” to judge the two drivers given Cadillac’s newcomer status and poor reliability record this season – particularly significant right now given there is speculation over his future at the team.
Cadillac is pushing to make sure Colton Herta is eligible for an F1 superlicence and other drivers have been lobbying for a race seat with the team, despite Bottas being on a multi-year contract.
Bottas has therefore faced repeat questions about his future and this reoccurred at Interlagos - where he said “at least everyone can see what we’re dealing with – many issues and many DNFs”.
“And also for some reason my car was running hotter in Mexico,” Bottas said.
“So it meant I had to do more management, more lift and coast. And even though I did, still we had a failure.
“So it’s not so straightforward in terms of judging the performance this year.”
Bottas said “the people who know, they know” and reiterated that the message he has had from Cadillac and its majority owner TWG is that he is doing a good job.
He expects his future to be rubber-stamped by a board meeting involving co-owner General Motors and has been “quite surprised by the amount of noise” around his future and the candidacy of others.
“All I’ve heard, the team has been happy with what I’m doing,” he said.
“But at the same time, we know how this world works. And especially now, everyone wants to be in Formula 1.
“If somebody sees an opportunity somewhere, they’re going to try and go for it, one way or the other.
“But the way our team is structured, and the way decisions are made for the future, everything needs to be approved by the board.
“I believe that meeting is still yet to happen. But I’ve been convinced that nothing has changed. So that’s where we are.”
Though Bottas feels he has had the lion’s share of the team’s problems this season, Perez has often been outspoken about just how much Cadillac needs to improve.
Perez, though, extended his Cadillac deal through to 2029 recently and has always seemed to have much more security in his position. The quality of his performances has also emboldened him to speak very bluntly about the team’s progress curve at times, too.
Bottas, meanwhile, is waiting for confirmation that the original plan to keep him in a race seat is honoured, much less agree to a new deal.
He said the situation Cadillac’s in, including the difficulties and the fact “they haven’t really delivered me the car that I can do much” with, is “always what I expected for the first year” – and called Mexico a “good example” that Cadillac has “bigger problems to solve than the drivers at the moment”.
Bottas added that his expectation for this year was “definitely not a mindset to fight for my seat” and when suggested by The Race that it would be slightly odd to bring him in for experience and long-term progress, then make a judgement that the performance is not what Cadillac was looking for, he replied: “I agree. It would be very odd.
“So that’s why I don’t think anything is going to change in my situation.
“That was kind of always the deal. All season I’ve been really following instructions. Sometimes it has been very clear that I just try and get the car to the finish line.
“But of course there’s always people who look from the outside, they maybe don’t understand the big picture. Then you get the criticism, which is normal in this sport.
“The main thing is we know where we are. I know what my job is. If they want something further from me, then I’m sure they will tell me.”
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