Renault investigating electrical problem

After Fernando's R23B suffered an electrical failure in qualifying yesterday, all the data was wiped from the electronic recorders. Suddenly, diagnosing the origin of the problem became a much more complicated task.

In qualifying yesterday, Fernando experienced an electronics problem in the first chicane. This affected the control systems on his car, and caused his spin. Analysing this kind of problem is difficult, and was made all the more difficult last night by the fact that all the data recorded by the electronics box was wiped during the incident.

"In these kind of circumstances, we had to take all the electrical systems on the car into account, as any of them could have caused the problem," explains Pat Symonds. "Everything down to the smallest wire or the tiniest sensor was checked yesterday: we're talking about hundreds of components. For each system, we tried to see which chain of possible events might have caused the problem yesterday."

The Renault F1 Team subsequently submitted a list of components to the FIA, requesting authorisation to replace them with identical parts. "Our request was approved, but did not get the cars back until 08:30 this morning. The mechanics now have some work ahead of them." continues Pat.

The team will have to wait to get back to the Enstone factory in order to have available the sophisticated systems which will allow them to diagnose the origin of the failure. It will also be possible to retrieve the data from the electronic recorder. "I just hope we have solved the problem," concludes Pat. "And of course, any time you carry out major work on the car, such as we have this morning, there is potential for other problems to occur. We hope that will not be the case."

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