20/03/2015
NEWS STORY
Paul Monaghan reveals reason for Daniil Kvyat's retirement on his way to the Melbourne grid last week.
Along with Kevin Magnussen, Kvyat failed to make the start of the season opener, which meant that, following Valtteri Bottas' back problem and Manor's no-show, only 15 cars lined up on the grid come Sunday afternoon.
"After investigating post-race, we found that the reason Daniil’s gearbox overheated and was unable to select a gear on the way to the grid was due to a lack of oil pressure," revealed Paul Monaghan, the team's Chief Engineer, Car Engineering. "As a factory we have been working hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
"Last year the progress we made from the third test to the first race was significant and one of our strengths is our development rate," he added. "We have the best team in place to repeat our success and we are working as hard as we can to improve as much as possible ahead of Malaysia."
Teammate Daniel Ricciardo finished sixth, a lap down on race winner Lewis Hamilton, the Australian subsequently admitting: "On paper sixth was the best for us today.
"In terms of where we need to improve, the main issue is the drivability and the power," he added, "there are pretty big chunks that we know we need to find there. Beyond that it’s hard, as with the chassis itself I don’t think we’ve really been able to test it to its limits yet due to the other issues we’ve had. We’ve got a lot of work to do."