Minardi F1 Team
drivers Christijan Albers and
Patrick Friesacher may have retired
from today’s San Marino Grand Prix, but the
Faenza squad was able to take heart from the fact it had
debuted its brand new Minardi Cosworth PS05 car and taken away a
great deal of useful data from the weekend.
Both cars
were forced into retirement as the result of
gearbox-related problems, Friesacher coasting down the
pit lane on lap nine with what turned out to be a broken
clutch shaft, and Albers running well until lap 20, when
a serious fluid leak was discovered during the first
scheduled pit stop and the team had
no choice but to retire the car in order to avoid damage
to the new gearbox.
The outcome of today’s race was
scant reward for the monumental effort put in by team
personnel over recent weeks to ensure a pair of Minardi
Cosworth PS05s were able to compete in this weekend’s
race.
However all concerned could take heart from the
progress that has been made in a very short time and the
potential that clearly exists for the future.
CHRISTIJAN ALBERS
“The first thing is that we did
some race laps today and learned a lot about the new
car. During the first stint, I had strong oversteer,
which we were going to deal with at the pit stop, but
unfortunately, there was quite a bad leak from the
gearbox and I was not able to continue. |
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Both cars
were forced into retirement as the result of
gearbox-related problems, Friesacher coasting down the
pit lane on lap nine with what turned out to be a
broken clutch shaft, and Albers running well until
lap 20, when a serious fluid leak was discovered
during the first scheduled pit stop |
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Both Minardis may have retired
from today’s San Marino Grand Prix, but the team was able to take heart from the fact it had debuted its new
Cosworth-powered Minardi PS05 |
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"I wish we could
have delivered a better result to the guys for all the
work they have put in, but it was not possible this
weekend. We’ll see what we can do in Barcelona.”
PATRICK
FRIESACHER
“The start was not too bad, and I
was quite happy with the opening laps, as I was ahead of
Christijan and able to stay with Monteiro, but then
suddenly, as I was accelerating out of the last corner,
it seemed like something broke. Generally, the car felt
good today, but we need to find some more downforce. We’ll be working on this area when we test at Mugello on
Wednesday and Thursday of this week.”
PAUL STODDART, Team
Principal
“Despite a valiant effort by the
drivers and the whole team, it wasn’t really a surprise
that reliability stopped both Minardis in today’s race,
as one has to consider that this is the first serious
outing for the PS05. Both failures were
gearbox-related, and hopefully, this week’s Mugello test
will give the team the opportunity to perfect certain
aspects of the car. On a positive note, though, we
believe the overall potential of the new package,
especially of the Cosworth TJ2005 engine, bodes very
well for the future.”
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