SPANISH GRAND PRIX DE-BRIEF - MARTIN WHITMARSH
Following the Spanish Grand Prix, Martin Whitmarsh,
CEO Formula 1, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, talks about Lewis’
third place finish and Heikki’s accident.
The Spanish Grand Prix has been something of an emotional
roller-coaster for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. The main thing,
though, was that Heikki Kovalainen didn’t suffer any
serious injuries when he crashed at Turn Nine.
"Absolutely. He has had a full head scan and there is
no significant bruising or damage - that’s extremely
good news. Heikki was briefly unconscious but he was lucid
soon after the accident and I’m told he was actually
quite jolly, which is fairly typical."
What happened to cause such a dramatic accident?
"We think he suffered a wheel rim failure that caused
his front-left tyre to deflate almost instantaneously. It’s
possible that some debris worked its way inside the rim, but
we still have to analyse that. It was a new wheel and we don’t
think it was a structural failure. There were some score marks,
but we don’t know whether they were caused by debris
or by his trip across the gravel trap. We’ve got to
answer that later."
Turn Nine is a high-speed right-hander. What sort
of forces were involved?
"It was a big accident. Cars brake from about 260km/h
at that point on the circuit and he didn’t scrub off
a huge amount of speed before impact - he was still travelling
pretty quickly when he hit the tyre wall and the impact lasted
about 100 milliseconds, which might not sound much but 20-30
milliseconds would be more usual."
"His misfortune overshadowed the event, but people shouldn’t
overlook the quality of his performance. He had still to pit
for fuel at the time of the accident and wasn’t due
to come in for a few more laps yet. That gives you some idea
of the fuel load he was carrying during qualifying, when he
did an absolutely fantastic lap."
The car is presumably a write-off, but it stood up
incredibly well.
"It was destroyed, yes. The front of the chassis broke
off. The chassis is wedge-shaped and we imagine it went in
to the barriers until the point at which it snapped. A section
of about 450-500mm broke off the front of the chassis, but
everything worked as it was supposed to. The car absorbed
a massive amount of energy, Heikki received no physical injuries
and the circuit emergency staff and the FIA medical team at
the track did an absolutely fantastic job in getting him out
of the car safely and then looking after him thereafter."
After a relatively fraught couple of weekends, Lewis
Hamilton returned to the podium. How pleased were you with
his performance?
"Lewis drove a great race. He took a very measured approach
at the beginning, because we reasoned that Fernando Alonso,
who was running just ahead of him, was possibly a little bit
lighter on fuel. It would have been very easy for Lewis to
chase down Fernando at that stage and damage his tyres, which
might have prevented him from taking advantage of Fernando’s
earlier stop. In fact, Lewis did just the right job in holding
back and doing minimal damage to his tyres, so as to be able
to press on later, and that clearly put him in good shape.
During the second and third stints he was as quick as the
Ferraris and able to catch up, but trying to pass a rival
car at the Circuit de Catalunya is another matter altogether."
Most teams took a step forward in performance terms
during the Spanish GP weekend. How do you assess the situation?
"The three quickest teams - ourselves, Ferrari and BMW-Sauber
- looked to be very closely matched; and Renault has taken
a major step forwards, too. It looks good for the sport, but
we have to build on our own solid performance. We know we
have some more developments coming through and we have to
make sure we get them as soon as we can. There will be some
more new parts on the car in Turkey and we simply have to
keep pushing."
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