Analysis shows suspension failure caused Massa's crash
Analysis in the Ferrari factory at Maranello has showed that Felipe Massa's crash during the Monaco Grand Prix was caused by a front left suspension failure.
Massa already had a very similar crash on Saturday, but then Ferrari said it was a driver error as nothing was wrong with the car.
A Ferrari statement reads: "After an initial evaluation carried out on site last night based on telemetry data, today, the engineers looked at all the components of Felipe Massa’s car, especially those that sustained damage in the heavy impact when the car crashed on lap 29 of the race.
"The findings validated the first impressions of the engineers, confirming that the accident was caused by an element of the front left suspension breaking. With all the required inspections completed to analyse what happened at the Monegasque circuit, the Car Assembly department can now start work in preparing the car for the Canadian Grand Prix. The cars will be flown off to Montreal this weekend for the much awaited race at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, which looks like being a very important one in terms of the Scuderia’s championship aspirations."
Having this failure in mind, team principal Stefano Domenicali stressed the need for consistency and reliabilty.
“Following on from a good weekend comes a bad one. That was the case in the first four races outside Europe and nothing has changed now we are back on the Old Continent. I can confirm that we didn’t get carried away when we won, nor did we beat ourselves up when things did not go as well as expected. But from now on, it will be important to establish a consistent level of performance.
“The Championship standings are very close and the number of strong opponents is ever increasing,” added Domenicali. “It’s a scenario in which each point is precious and each hundredth of performance becomes important and obviously we are well aware that one less reliability problem can be vey significant in terms of how the championship pans out. We have a lot of work to do in the coming days to be as well prepared as possible for Montreal. We have all rolled our sleeves up and are focussed on the tasks that lie ahead of us.”
Felipe Massa himself meanwhile is fine, having only some muscle pain following the two crashed. A few days of rest will be enough for the Brazilian to recover fully.
