Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi made the headlines this
morning in the first free practice session for the
Chinese Grand Prix when he suffered a spectacular double
front suspension failure as he braked over the bump
approaching Turn 14. Both front wheels were ripped off
the Ferrari V8-powered STR5 before the Swiss youngster
even began to turn and with the uprights detaching in
the incident the wheel tethers were unable to do their
job, one wheel bouncing into a spectator area;
fortunately Buemi came to a rest uninjured.
Subsequent examination by the
Faenza, Italy based team in the paddock revealed a
problem with the right front upright - a new design for
the China weekend - with the team believing that its
failure put an additional load on the left hand upright
causing it to fail also. Toro Rosso subsequently
reverted to the suspension it had been using previously
this season.
Jaime Alguersuari (STR5-03)
“Another new circuit for me:
it’s impressive, tough and technical but enjoyable to
drive. Today went well for me, as we completed a lot of
work, trying different fuel loads and working on set-up,
as well as a tyre comparison. The hard tyre definitely
takes a lot longer to come up to temperature, while the
soft tyre seemed to work very well for us and should be
good in the race. We still have work to do to improve
tomorrow, but I am happy with what we have achieved so
far.”
First Practice Session -
Best lap 1.38.161, pos. 11th, 19 laps; Second Practice
Session - Best lap 1.36.377, pos. 8th, 43 laps
Sebastien Buemi (STR5-01)
“There’s not much to say about
what happened in FP1. I braked, the wheels came off and
that was it. Physically, I was fine though. But I have
to say, I am extremely disappointed that, once again,
through no fault of my own, I have been unable to run
for almost all of the three hours available. I will have
to try and catch up on Saturday morning and we will be
relying on Jaime’s data from today to see which way to
go.”
First Practice Session -
Best lap 1.39.939, pos. 17th, 5 laps; Second Practice
Session – No time
Giorgio Ascanelli (Technical
Director)
“Sebastien’s accident this
morning was down to a technical problem on the right
hand upright, which proved simple to identify once we
got the car back. We have resolved the problem, which
the many laps completed by Jaime this afternoon
confirms. Sebastien’s FP1 session was interrupted
shortly after the start because of a fluid leak around
the pedal area, which we discovered after his
installation lap. Apart from the upright, the afternoon
accident caused some damage to the gearbox and a
combination of fixing this problem and changing the
front end meant that, despite the best efforts of the
mechanics, we could not get Seb out before the end of
the day. Fortunately, Jaime did a lot of laps in a
trouble free session, after we had stopped him as a
precaution towards the end of FP1, until we had
identified the problem on his team-mate’s car. For his
debut on this circuit, Jaime did quite a good job
today.”
