Spare monocoque and a fresh V8 for qualifyingThe Renault crew are hard at work in Montreal following Heikki Kovalainen's accident yesterday and his engine failure in practice this morning. Underlining the work load that the crew put in is the following explanation, from
Renault, regarding one small accident and its subsequent ramifications.
After going off yesterday afternoon in practice, the Renault team opted to move Kovalainen over into a new chassis for today's running.
“The impact didn’t look all that heavy but the force and the direction of it split the front of the monocoque,” explained Chief Mechanic Gavin Hudson. “When we realised this yesterday we decided to use our spare monocoque.”
From 4 p.m onwards a small team of 4 mechanics got down to work. “The reserve monocoque, no.3, includes the fuel tank, the cables and hydraulic lines but nothing more,” Hudson explained. “So we had to rebuild the car from scratch, install the suspension system, the pedal box, test the fuel system, start the engine and so on. We left the circuit at one o’clock in the morning.”
The rebuild took nine hours.
Chassis no.3 is the one Kovalainen has been using in most of the races this season so far.
“This incident is a perfect illustration of our team spirit,” Hudson summed up. “In fact, once Giancarlo’s car was finished in the evening, other mechanics gradually joined in to help their colleagues and the job was finished a bit earlier.”
The monocoque damaged yesterday (no.6) will be sent to Enstone. It will be repaired and used as a test car. The monocoque damaged by Fisichella in Monaco has been repaired; it will be sent to Indianapolis as a spare.
For Kovalainen and Renault, things get harder with a ten position drop following qualification.
Source Renault
