A1 Sepang: Difficult Start For A1 Team Switzerland In Free Practice
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Nov 21, 2008
A1 Team Switzerland was faced with technical troubles at Sepang (Malaysia). An immediate clutch problem could be solved temporarily before practice started. Neel Jani had to make do with nine laps but still posted the second-fastest time.
The clutch that didn’t work had kept the mechanics busy all night from Thursday to Friday. The car wasn’t available for the morning rookie practice session. The duties that were scheduled for Alexandre Imperatori, especially running-in the brakes, therefore remained uncompleted.
“We have a difficult day behind us”, said Neel Jani. “Along with the clutch problem came other difficulties. At the start of practice, the engine misfired and the brakes worked only for a little bit more than 50 percent. We just had no time to find a workable set-up. In these conditions, we can be happy with what we have achieved. But we have a lot of work to do before qualifying.”
Team principal Max Welti was very positive about engineer James Robinson and his crew who put in an unplanned night shift: “I would like to thank my team and the specialists from Ferrari and Magneti Marelli for their huge effort. In order to solve the problem, they had to take the rear axle out and put it back in again ten times or so. The so-called actuator turned out to be the part that caused the problem. James and his crew found a makeshift solution. I really hope that we can get the problem solved before Saturday.”
One year ago, A1 Team Switzerland had achieved the best possible result at Sepang: pole position for both the sprint and the feature race, two race wins and the fastest race lap on each occasion.
