Rear track rod failure hinders Caterham’s first day of second pre-season test – Formula 1 news
A rear track rod failure ended the testing for Caterham on the first day of the second pre-season test at Barcelona.
Heikki Kovalainen was driving for Caterham and had completed only 31 laps when the failure occurred bringing the car to a halt and causing a red flag. The car had to be towed to return to the pits where Caterham looked into car and were able to fix the car
late in the day.
Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne said that the team will look into the matter further to make sure such an incident does not occur again. He said that it was disappointing to lose the track time but believes that the team can make up for lost time.
“We had a rear track rod failure on Heikki's third run this morning which brought him to a halt on track,” Gascoyne said. “As soon as we had the car back in the garage we identified the issue and managed to fix it on site, and we have more parts coming out
tonight to make sure we don't have the same problem again. We know that this car is fundamentally reliable, so the aim for the next three days is to complete the plan for this test and put ourselves back on schedule.”
Gascoyne also said that there are more parts coming in to make sure that the problem does not repeat. He said that the nature of the car is fundamentally reliable and so the team is not so worried about any further issues. The car will be back on tomorrow
and participate in the test and hopefully it will make up for the lost time and get back on schedule.
Kovalainen could not provide much insight to how he felt on the track and how the car behaved. He said that it will be clearer tomorrow when he will be able to drive the car hopefully for the whole day. He showed the same confident Gascoyne had and said
that the car will be ok for the remainder of the test and the third test at the same venue.
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