Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has said that Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas was partly to blame for his retirement from the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.

The Finnish driver had been enjoying a fine weekend with him promoted to second after qualifying third thanks to Charles Leclerc's pre-race retirement and he was looking to try and take the fight to Max Verstappen after the first set of pit-stops.

However, that is where his race unravelled as a jammed wheel-nut could not be removed during a tyre change as it became fixed fast with the wheel gun unable to budge it.

If Bottas didn't have bad luck he'd have no luck at all and, on a weekend where he could have at least closed the gap to team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the standings, he ended up losing further ground in the championship fight.

It was a cruel way to see his race taken away, then, but Toto Wolff feels he has to take a slight bit of the blame as he didn't quite hit his marks for his pit crew to then set about working on his car in the right position.

The Mercedes chief explained:

“Valtteri stopped a little too early,” said Wolff, quoted by Auto Motor und Sport, as suggested the Finn had pulled up slightly short of his marks.

“This meant the mechanic had to apply the impact wrench at an angle. The awkward angle damaged the wheel nut and we couldn’t bring it down.”

Ultimately, it was a few slight errors from those involved that led to their race being pole-axed and all they can do is learn from it and try and move on.

Bottas has a massive scrap on to get back into the title fight now, too, and we'll just have to wait and see how he responds.