Yet another double retirement for Super Aguri

By nGO
May 10 2006

Although both drivers made a good start to the grand prix with Sato's trademark maximum attack gaining him multiple places, yet again reliabilty issues mean that both cars fail to finish.

The start was potentially dangerous coming into a very tight first corner in the Nurburgring, but Montagny managed to keep it tidy and stay out of any trouble for his first grand prix start. Sato again managed to pull off one of his customary first lap specials; he blitzed the field to run briefly in 12th place from his starting position of 20th. During the first lap, Coulthard and Liuzzi tangled bringing an end to their race although Sato and Montagny stayed clear of this first lap incident.

From that point on both drivers were running a steady race although the faster cars were finding their way around Sato to reclaim their positions. Not too long after Super Aguri's first pitstops on lap 29 Montagny pulled over while out on track and retired due to hydraulics failure. Sato retired back into the garage shortly after the second pitstop on lap 45 also due to a hydraulics failure. while out on track during the last half of the race, the left side of his wing situated on the upper air intake gave way and became potentially dangerous. This has been the second double retirement of the season, another grand prix Super Aguri would like to forget as they look ahead to Barcelona next week.

Loss of straight line speed halted Sato's early super attack and a Hydraulics problem put an end to his race, "It was a great race for me up until the last moment when I had to retire due to a hydraulic problem. It is a shame for the team who had worked so hard this weekend – I also really wanted to finish this race because we had been reliable for the first part of the season. The start was exciting for me as off the line was reasonably ok but I overtook quite a few cars at turn one, which was a good feeling. Unfortunately I then had a similar problem to the one I experienced on Saturday morning – the car’s straight-line speed got increasingly slower over the first five laps and I lost a number of the places that I had made up. For the rest of the race the car was handling reasonably well so it is disappointing not to have crossed the finish line, but at least the next grand prix is only a few days away, so I am looking forward to getting back to work in Barcelona."

A thankful Montagny was going strong until a Hydraulics problem forced him to retire, "It is disappointing not to have finished my first race with the team, but that is motor racing! The car’s handling was not too bad and I was having quite a reasonable race up until I suffered with a hydraulic problem. I would like to thank Aguri Suzuki for giving me this opportunity. It has been a good weekend and I have enjoyed working with the team, so hopefully I will be back in an SAF1 Team racing seat again."

A second race in a row where both cars have failed to finish, good times will be few and far between until the SA06 arrives. Aguri Suzuki is disappointed, "This weekend has not been a successful one for SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM. Both cars retired with a mechanical problem so we will find out what was wrong and correct it for the next race. The performance of our car is lower than the others and we will struggle until we have the SA06, so we will have to keep working on the current car and continue to do our best.”