Kovalainen gets new chassis

Heikki Kovalainen will have a new chassis for today. When he went off yesterday he damaged no.6’s monocoque. “The impact didn’t look all that heavy but the force and the direction of it split the front of the monocoque,” explained Gavin Hudson, the ING Renault F1 Team’s chief mechanic. “When we realised this yesterday we decided to use our spare monocoque.”

From 4 p.m onwards a small team of 4 mechanics got down to work. “The reserve monocoque, no.3, includes the fuel tank, the cables and hydraulic lines but nothing more,” said Hudson. “So we had to rebuild the car from scratch, install the suspension system, the pedal box, test the fuel system, start the engine and so on. We left the circuit at one o’clock in the morning.” The rebuild took nine hours. Chassis no.3 is the one Heikki has been using in most of the races this season so far.

“This incident is a perfect illustration of our team spirit,” Gavin summed up. “In fact, once Giancarlo’s car was finished in the evening, other mechanics gradually joined in to help their colleagues and the job was finished a bit earlier.”

Today, the monocoque damaged yesterday will be sent to Enstone. It will be repaired and used as a test car. The monocoque damaged by Fisichella in Monaco has been repaired; it will be sent to Indianapolis as a spare.