21/03/2008
NEWS STORY
Red Bull has run into further problems at Sepang today as Race Stewards have demanded a full technical report following what appears to be a technical (suspension) failure on David Coulthard's car.
The Scot ran off track at Turn 13 in the first session following what was later discovered to be a track rod failure. However, what should have been a relatively minor incident, with the car running over the kerbs and heading off onto one of the large expanses of tarmac run-off, turned nasty when the front suspension appeared to collapse after the car ran over the kerb.
There has already been talk following the amount of damage the Scot's car sustained following the collision with Felipe Massa in last week's Australian race, when, after what appeared to be a fairly low key coming together the front of the car disintegrated.
With Red Bull opting to withdraw the Scot from today's second session while it investigated the failure, the team was subsequently summoned to the Race Stewards office to discuss the incident.
Following the meeting, the Milton Keynes based outfit has been asked to supply a technical report to the FIA setting out why the team should not be excluded from the remainder of the weekend's activities on safety grounds.
The subsequent Stewards report read: "The Stewards, having met with the team principal and technical representative of Red Bull Racing in relation to the incident involving Car 9 in Practice 1, have requested that the competitor provide to the FIA Technical Delegate a report verifying that the integrity of the suspension is such that the car should not be deemed 'of dangerous constructions' under Art 2.3 of the 2008 Formula One Technical Regulations."
"It was a front right track rod that failed," team boss Christian Horner told reporters. "You can see that the adhesives failed and it just looked like a human error. Therefore, we have absolutely no concerns about the car's safety for tomorrow."
The Austrian team was the subject of an eleventh hour crash test last week, only being given the all-clear to race in Melbourne late on Thursday night.