Renault explain reason for Sebastian Vettel’s alternator failure in Italian GP – Formula 1 news
Renault think that overheating at the low revs could have caused alternator failure in the car of Red Bull Racing driver, Sebastian Vettel in the 2012 Italian Grand Prix.
Vettel could not pocket even a single point in the previous race held at Autodromo di Monza as his alternator stopped working due to which he had to face the retirement.
It will be important to mention that the veteran German driver faced the similar problem in the European GP in which he dominated until 33rd lap but unfortunately could not finish the race and was retired.
Although, the engine provider of the defending champions, Renault said that they have made the necessary changes in the alternator before the last race and gave a green signal after thoroughly checking all the requirements. However, they expressed that they
didn’t understand what happened in the race which caused the failure of the alternator.
Afterwards, they said that they were trying their best to find out the reason for the malfunction of the alternator and recently, their deputy Managing Director, Rob White has asserted that according to their analysis, overheating caused the underlying problem.
"Our investigations after Valencia revealed potential overheating problems at low RPM," he said. "We developed a revised alternator that was validated on the test bench and trialled at Spa by Red Bull and Lotus - the teams that suffered the issues in Valencia
- and no issues were found.”
"The fundamental change was to lengthen alternator stator and rotor by 10mm to increase its electrical power generation capacity where current demand exceeded alternator's capacity to supply. With this new spec we can deliver around 30 per cent more current
to try to address problems at low RPM,” he added.
The Milton Keynes based team has lost some crucial points in their championship lead after the last race as both their drivers, Vettel and Mark Webber failed to score any points.
Nonetheless, they are not feeling depressed over their poor form in the preceding race and are confidently targeting to maintain their lead in the championship battle so as to defend their title this year.
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