AT&T Williams F1 has confirmed today that the cause of Rubens Barrichello’s crash in the Monaco Grand Prix was indeed, as Adam Cooper pointed out, the loose manhole cover on the approach to Casino.
The team offered an official announcement as to the causes of both failures in the race:
Following an investigation, AT&T Williams confirmed today that the cause of Rubens Barrichello’s crash at the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday 16 May 2010 was a loose manhole cover at Turn 2. As Rubens’ car drove over the manhole cover, the cover was spun up and hit the rear left wheel, causing failure. The car was badly damaged in the ensuing crash which ended Rubens’ race. This incident has been reported to the FIA.
As previously confirmed, Nico Hulkenberg’s front wing mounting failure was unrelated and caused by impact with another car.
While the cause of the crash has now been revealed, I am still stumped as to how the marshal’s at the race could have repaired the manhole in two laps. French TV was careful not show any footage of the issue on the world feed and it escapes me as to how you fix a loose manhole cover in two laps time.
The incident spoiled an otherwise good run for the Brazilian as he made a terrific start and bolted to 6th in the running order. frustrated at the incident, Barrichello threw his steering wheel on to the racing surface where it was promptly ran over and collected under the car of Karun Chandhok in his HRT.
As for Nico Hulkenberg? No such excuse…just a bad weekend for him and for Williams F1.
