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28th
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Renault Sport, the company that supplies V-8 Formula 1 engines to Red Bull Racing, Lotus F1 Team and Caterham F1 Team admitted that overheating alternators have caused Sebastian Vettel and Romain Grosjean's retirements from the European Grand Prix.
Vettel's Red Bull RB8 and Grosjean's Lotus E20 both stopped on the race track during the race as a result of alternators getting way too hot.
However, Rob White, Renault Sport F1 deputy managing director explained that overheating parts cut the electrical supply to the power units and forcing both drivers out. White also admitted that Renault is still uncertain about why the parts got too hot in the first place.
"We've checked over the parts thoroughly now and it seems that there were no obvious reasons for the failure, so we are conducting further tests on the dyno at Viry-Chatillon to replicate conditions and double checking the findings,” White said.
The Briton added that investigations showed that the failures were not related to the mid-race Safety Car period.
"We had evidence that the alternator on Sebastian's car was showing signs of overheating before the Safety Car period, but the slower speeds prolonged its life expectancy slightly," White explained.
“With Romain's (Grosjean) car, the problem occurred very suddenly some laps after the Safety Car had been withdrawn,” White added.
The engineer indicated that Renault Sport would look at various measures to prevent a similar problem occurring at Silverstone during the Grand Prix of Great Britain, using a different batch of alternators, increasing the cooling or going back to last year's units.
Vettel's Red Bull RB8 and Grosjean's Lotus E20 both stopped on the race track during the race as a result of alternators getting way too hot.
However, Rob White, Renault Sport F1 deputy managing director explained that overheating parts cut the electrical supply to the power units and forcing both drivers out. White also admitted that Renault is still uncertain about why the parts got too hot in the first place.
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| Sebastian Vettel leading the race in Valencia before his retirement. (Photo: Pirelli) |
"We've checked over the parts thoroughly now and it seems that there were no obvious reasons for the failure, so we are conducting further tests on the dyno at Viry-Chatillon to replicate conditions and double checking the findings,” White said.
The Briton added that investigations showed that the failures were not related to the mid-race Safety Car period.
"We had evidence that the alternator on Sebastian's car was showing signs of overheating before the Safety Car period, but the slower speeds prolonged its life expectancy slightly," White explained.
“With Romain's (Grosjean) car, the problem occurred very suddenly some laps after the Safety Car had been withdrawn,” White added.
The engineer indicated that Renault Sport would look at various measures to prevent a similar problem occurring at Silverstone during the Grand Prix of Great Britain, using a different batch of alternators, increasing the cooling or going back to last year's units.