Nick Wirth has said that his own company will pay for the modifications required to the VR-01 car, in both senses of the word, after it was discovered that the car's fuel tank was too small to complete a race distance.
The embarrassing discovery was made on the eve of last weekend's Australian Grand Prix, with the team discovering that they did not have the fuel capacity to complete a race in 'normal conditions'.
So far, the lack of fuel capacity has not been an issue, as the cars have broken down well before fuel became an issue, but with the team presumably planning to finish a race at some point this season, modifications to the design are being made.
And Wirth has said that, given it was his design team that mucked up in the first place, the Wirth Research company will absorb the cost of designing modified monocoques for the start of the European season.
"The chassis supplier is us. Nothing to do with engine supplier or fuel supplier. What that means is that we are fixing it for the team. We are not charging the team," Wirth explained, while trying to keep his head out of the clouds.
"It's our responsibility to provide cars that can finish a grand prix. It's down to us."
He added that as well as the fuel tank not being big enough, the VR-01 was also suffering from other issues, including a fuel pick-up problem within the engine that forced drivers Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi to qualify in Australia with far more fuel onboard than was strictly necessary, which compromised their already limited pace.
"It's us. It's not a team issue, it's us," With repeated while performing a quick self-flagellating, "We are not doing a very good job at the moment, particularly in qualifying, of picking up all the fuel.
"We are at liberty to carry on [using heavy fuel loads]. That doesn't affect the volume of fuel. But what we are saying is that even if we could pick up every last drop, which we can't at the moment, we've got an issue."
In more positive news, Wirth did at least confirm that the hydraulic issues that had plagued the new team throughout the pre-season and in Bahrain seemed to have cleared up.
For the avoidance of doubt, the fundamental problem that we've had with hydraulics over the winter we cured by Bahrain," Wirth clarified, "And the we had a new problem in Bahrain, where a part was incorrectly manufactured and it was on Luca's car, and we kept blowing an oil ring out.
"And only when got it back to the UK we could examine it properly and found the part was incorrectly made and it's been fixed. In Bahrain we had an specific problem which is not the same as anything over the winter, and in Australia we've had zero problems with hydraulics and we don't expect any problems with hydraulics."
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
