Rear suspension fears causes Arrows retirement x2

By Huw Alban
April 29 2002

OrangeArrows have revealed that the reason for their double retirement was a suspected fault in the rear track rod on both cars. Enrique Bernoldi was the first to suffer the problem, but he was repaired and sent back out. When Frentzen reported the same breakage both car were withdrawn from the race

Heinz-Harald Frentzen had had a superb race, working his way from 18th on the grid to 9th before his problem occured. "That was a real shame as I was having a very exciting race", he said . "Our race set-up was working well and I was really enjoying myself out there. I felt that something was wrong with the rear of the car a few laps before my scheduled pit-stop so I came early. As it was the same problem Enrique had we decided it was safer to retire from the race."

Enrique Bernoldi was using the spare car after his eventful warm up this morning. He wasn't making the same progress as his team mate, but was still putting in a competitive show from 15th place. "I've had one hell of a day today," he said to the official Arrows website. "First, the accident I had this morning, then all the dramas in the race. After our difficult qualifying session, it was good to be able to show our pace was good for the race. I'm sorry that my home Grand Prix ended this way as I had a good start and was having a good time fighting for positions."

In the team post race press release Mike Coughlan, Technical Director, was disappointed with the sudden lapse in reliability that had been so solid all weekend. He revealed that is was possible that the fault origibally caused Enrique's spin the warmup session, but because of the damage to his car it was not spotted. This was a grand shame because at Frentzen's pace that team had a distinct chance of scoring a points finish.

"We have had no problems with that part until today so we are obviously very disappointed," he said. "It looks like we had the problem on Enrique's car this morning, but because of the damage we did not realise. Both drivers were running strongly in the race so we look forward to Imola where temperatures should suit us more."