Albers undaunted by Suzuka exit
Christijan Albers says he was unfazed by his spectacular exit from the Japanese GP, and was more disappointed by the fact that he had been enjoying a very competitive race before the problem occurred.
Christijan suffered a rear suspension failure that was caused by a broken exhaust sending hot gases straight onto the wishbone. It failed as he approached the chicane after the run through the high-speed 130R corner. Fortunately there was room to manoeuvre, and he even managed to bring the car safely back to the pits.
‘I saw the right rear wheel passing me, and also the rear wing,’ he says. ‘But that’s life. You drive F1 and you get paid for things like that. It’s not like I’m sitting on a bicycle going to school! You should perform in all kinds of circumstances, and things like this can happen. Of course I was lucky, but you have to forget it.’
At the time of his retirement Christijan had been enjoying a competitive outing, having qualified in the top 16 and run at the head of a group of cars that are usually ahead of the Spykers on pace, including the Red Bulls.
‘It’s not only a shame for me but it’s also a shame for the boys, because we were quite competitive, like we were in Turkey. We keep on pushing. With the car we have at this moment we can’t go quicker, but if we get everything together all the time really well and prepare really well then we have a chance, and we can see that.
‘The Red Bulls are usually 1-1.5s in front of our car, but in qualifying in Japan we were in front of them, and in the race we were also able to fight. If we didn’t have this problem with the crack in the exhaust, because when we had that we lost some performance, and we came into an emergency programme.
‘I think I was going to be really strong, because we had a second new set of tyres in the middle stint, which is what we planned, and I think we were going to be surprisingly quick.’
Christijan is now looking forward to the final race of the season in Interlagos, which will also be the team’s last with Toyota power. He is hoping to finish on a high, and of course if possible score the team’s first points of the season.
‘I think I should go maximum attack for Brazil. Brazil is also a track where we need top speed, and we don’t have that. Japan was a track where you need top speed, but we were still competitive. I could fight them in the corners, they were slower than me, but then on the straights they were just passing me so easily I couldn’t even defend myself, and then just overtook me on the outside.’
Meanwhile technical director James Key is sure that there will not be a repeat of the one-off problem the car had in Suzuka.
‘We had a broken exhaust,’ James explains. ‘And the way it which it had broken just happened to direct the hot gas straight towards the wishbone. Because it was on the right hand side it was under compression through 130R, and under tension under braking, and it broke, which was a shame. But at least it happened when it did, and not the corner before.
‘From the engine telemetry we knew we had an exhaust issue, but we hadn’t realised that it was as catastrophic as it was. I think a crack developed, and then it broke. When we took the sidepod off afterwards and saw how it had broken it was obvious what happened. We didn’t see any temperature issues on the pushrod until that last lap.
‘It was a bit frustrating because we thought we’d have a reasonable race at Suzuka. He was there with the Red Bulls, which was good. We were going to go longer than them before pitting, so he could have gained a bit from that, and the tyres were working OK. So it was a real shame. We just have to make up for it in Brazil.’
