Engine inexperience to blame at Australia

Never got going
By Huw Alban
April 29 2002

OrangeArrows team boss has blamed the teams inexperience with the new Cosworth engines for the two car stall at the start of the installation lap at last weekends Australian Grand Prix. The team were unable to get the engines going before the race had started and were Black Flagged from the race.

Both cars were started OK on the dummy grid, and were prepared and ready to start the installation lap. As the lights turned green, the TV coverage clearly showed the grid streaming away apart from the two Arrows A23's. The team hurried out to both cars but were unable to restart them on the grid (although this site has also been told that the reasons for this were that the starter batteries were not charged).

After the race had finished, Tom Walkinshaw was quoted as blaming his drivers for allowing the engine revs to drop too low. He does qualify the statement though by saying that the team were suffering from inexperience with the new engine at this point in the season.

"It looks like the drivers didn't keep the revs up enough on the grid which let the engines die," Walkinshaw was quoted as saying to Autosport. "They haven't had a lot of experience of the engine but it's still the sort of thing that shouldn't happen."

Technical Director Mike Coughlan indicated strongly that the team would learn from the experience, and that the mistake would not be made again !