MF1 RACING
2006 Spanish GP - Race Report
A broken front wing brought Christijan Albers' race to an
end on the 48th lap of the Spanish Grand Prix. Christijan
attempted to nurse the car home, but was thwarted by uncontrollable
handling and retired to the garage with 18 laps remaining.
On a more positive note, Tiago Monteiro took the chequered
flag in 16th position for his 23rd finish in 25 Grand Prix
starts, extending his reliability percentage to an impressive
92%.
MF1 Racing returns to its headquarters in Silverstone to
continue development of the M16 in preparation for the Monaco
Grand Prix in two weeks.
Tiago Monteiro (POR), #18
Chassis: M16-03
Starting Position: 17th
Classification: 16th, 63 laps completed (+3 laps)
Fastest Lap: 1:19.265 at 14:42:19 (+2.617 from fastest lap
of race)
Quote: "We're finishing stronger and
stronger, so that's a very positive point for us. Perhaps
it wasn't very apparent today, but we had a very good car,
and again, I have to thank my team, because they did a great
job. I really enjoyed my car throughout the race. It's just
too bad that Montagny tapped me from behind and spun me off
early in the race, because it destroyed my race strategy,
unfortunately."
Christijan Albers (NED), #19
Chassis: M16-04
Starting Position: 18th
Classification: Retired, 48 laps completed
Fastest Lap: 1:19.532 at 14:41:55 (+2.884 from fastest lap
of race)
Quote: "We came into this race knowing
that we didn't have the top speed to be competitive. My problem
today was that I was gaining time in the corners but losing
it all on the straights. To make matters worse, my front wing
broke and destroyed some other parts, which made the car undriveable.
The car was just becoming too difficult to control. But we
are planning to change my chassis for Monaco and we will both
have fresh engines, so hopefully that will help."
James Key, Technical Director: "We
had hoped for a more competitive performance, but to be fair,
this is a circuit that has traditionally been difficult for
us. The mix of straights and low-speed corners work against
each other in the way you have to set up a car. But some teams
manage to do it and this weekend we haven't really done as
much as we'd hoped. So, yes, that's a bit frustrating. Being
caught behind slower cars meant that we got lapped earlier
than we would have normally, and that took a lot of our race
time away - roughly two seconds per lap. Once we got caught
in that situation, the blue flags killed the lap times further,
because our drivers had to slow down and move off the line
to let the leaders by. Tiago did a good job to make it to
the finish and he was generally pretty consistent. We had
a strategy for Christijan which we felt was the right direction
to go, given his position on the grid, but the issues he encountered
during the race put paid to those ideas. He either hit a kerb
or got hit by someone else's flying bodywork; we'll have to
analyse the damage to see what it was."
Dominic Harlow, Chief Race and Test Engineer:
"Another solid finish for Tiago - 23 out of 25 so far,
and counting. We've not quite got the pace yet to challenge
our closest competitors, but it's getting there. For Christijan,
obviously, the retirement was disappointing. We brought him
in because we weren't going to be classified under the 90%
rule, so it was pointless to continue at that stage. We'll
be looking into what caused his problem, which was related
to the front wing. In any event, the damage to the car made
it too difficult for him to drive, so rather than risk his
safety, we decided to bring him in."
|
