German GP: Renault race notes

The Mild Seven Renault F1 Team experienced an extremely disappointing German Grand Prix, with both of the Team's drivers forced to retire following a mixture of technical and sporting incidents.

Jarno Trulli ended his weekend in the gravel trap of Turn 13 following an error whilst he was following close behind Giancarlo Fisichella. After an excellent start that saw him in sixth position at the end of the first lap, he suffered a loss in performance owing to significant levels of tyre wear brought about by the high temperatures. Following his first pit stop, he was handed a drive-through penalty for failing to respect blue flags.

Jenson Button experienced a race full of incident. Running tenth during the opening laps in spite of an off-track excursion at the first corner, he immediately found himself fighting significant amounts of understeer. On lap seven, he experienced a loss of engine power. Although this was resolved by switching off the traction control system, the resultant increase in tyre wear had an additional impact on performance. Just prior to his retirement, which was caused by a currently unidentified engine problem, he was nevertheless setting his fastest laps of the race.

Jarno Trulli, retired

"I'm extremely disappointed today. I made a good start and kept up with the leaders for a few laps. Afterwards, I started losing time because of the tyres, and had to stop earlier than expected as a result. I don't really understand why I got the drive through penalty: the team had warned me over the radio, and I felt I'd left enough room. The retirement was my fault: I was following Giancarlo very closely, and got caught up in his braking. There was nothing else I could do to avoid a collision."

Jenson Button, retired

"What can I say? I had understeer from the start, possibly because of a problem with the differential. After that, I lost engine power: we fixed the problem by switching off the traction control, but that obviously made it even harder to drive the car. Then the engine cut out on the long straight at the back of the circuit. It's been a weekend to forget!"

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering, Mild Seven Renault F1 Team

"The interesting challenge of this new circuit presented us with some surprises in the race. Jarno's first set of tyres gave problems which necessitated an early stop while Jenson's appeared to get better and better. Unfortunately, Jenson experienced some power loss which we have yet to explain, and his engine then cut out. Having started to make progress on his second set of tyres, Jarno went off while challenging for position."

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