Wolff and Vasseur took part in the Vegas event’s team principals’ press conference just after FP1 had had to be cancelled, due to a water valve cover being worked loose by Esteban Ocon’s Alpine and struck by Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and Ocon’s Alpine on subsequent laps.
This was due to the high underfloor forces the current ground-effect era of F1 cars assert on street tracks, with the concrete surround on the valve cover in question failing after the cars had been running over it at top speed.
Ocon’s car had to be rebuilt around a new chassis while urgent repairs were made to the valve cover and 30 others along the Strip. Sainz also needed a new chassis and engine to complete the Vegas weekend and was given a 10-place grid penalty for using an additional energy store outside of his allocation.
As this was going on, Wolff and Vasseur took part in an extraordinary press conference where a clearly irate Vasseur stated: “This [situation] will cost us a fortune – we fucked-up the session for Carlos”.
Wolff later said “you're speaking about a fucking drain cover that's been undone, that has happened before – that's nothing, it's FP1” as he sought to defend the Las Vegas event organisation from criticism over the track problems.
Source: Autosport