Component From McLaren At Hungary Ends Up Passing FIA Crash Test

MONZA, Italy — McLaren has been fined $50,000 for running a new gearbox in the Hungarian Grand Prix that had not been submitted for the official crash test.
The team informed the FIA prior to the race that it would be using a new lightweight gearbox but said it was not significantly different from the previous gearbox. The rules state “any significant modification introduced into any of the structures tested shall require that part to pass a further test.”
After further investigation following the race, the FIA determined that the new gearbox was indeed significantly different and asked McLaren to carry out the crash test.
Because the gearbox later passed the test, McLaren was not penalized for having an illegal gearbox. But McLaren was censured and fined for choosing to rely on the results of its own computer modeling and denying the FIA the opportunity to require the results of an actual impact test before using the component concerned.

• An Italian prosecutor says his investigation into the mysterious white powder that appeared in the Ferrari fuel tanks and Nigel Stepney’s pockets will result in a court case against Stepney.

• Kimi Raikkonen walked away from a huge crash Saturday morning.
He hit a bump braking from 200 miles per hour for the Ascari chicane. The Ferrari hit the guardrail and then plowed into the tire barrier.
Raikkonen finished Sunday.

• Williams ran a “bridge” front wing at Monza similar to what McLaren has used this season. Ironically, McLaren did not use the wing at Monza.

• One comic in the grandstands hung out a banner telling Ron Dennis he had the drawings for the 2008 Ferrari and giving his phone number for Ron to call.

• Ferrari was pleased that McLaren was called back to face the World Motor Sport Council in the spy case.
“Ferrari...wishes to reaffirm its own strong wish that all the elements in this case are brought to light,” a team statement said. “Ferrari is confident that the truth will out.”
But Jean Todt says that if Ferrari is not satisfied with the FIA ruling it will continue to pursue the matter in the courts in Italy and England.

• Fernando Alonso won the pole for the third time this season if you count the pole in Hungary that he lost due to a penalty.

• It was here at Monza one year ago that Michael Schumacher announced to the world that he would retire at the end of the 2006 season.

• Qualifying’s third session is set to be changed in 2008 to eliminate the eco-unfriendly sounding fuel-burning laps. Q3 will be shortened so that a driver will get only one qualifying run at most tracks. A driver would still refuel just before the final session with the amount of fuel needed for qualifying and the first stint of the race. But there will be no fuel credit, as there is this year, to allow the car to be topped up with fuel the driver used in Q3.

• Heikki Kovalainen plans to follow in Jarno Trulli’s footsteps and become the second F-1 driver to run in the New York Marathon.

• Spyker’s recently fired driver Christijan Albers was in Monza as was former F-1 shoe Eddie Irvine.

• Lewis Hamilton’s right front tire failure in the Turkish Grand Prix was initiated by chunking. But chunking is not, as erroneously reported by your F-1 correspondent last week, caused by the loose grains of the tire rubber sticking together.
Chunking, Bridgestone’s Motorsport Head of Track Operations Kees van der Grint explained at Monza, is a fairly common occurrence usually caused by heat in which small chunks or bits of the tread get thrown off and leave the core belt of the tire exposed. In Turkey, however, the chunking was caused by the higher than expected (5 G) forces in turn eight.
“We have a chunking area, a stress area and a delamination area,” he said. “The others stayed in the chunking area but Lewis, for whatever reason, ran in the stress area. Then another force was applied, be it braking, a curb or something else we don’t know, which caused first the tread to separate and then the belt to break up, or maybe the other way around.”
The top three finishers all had chunking in their tires. Bridgestone can’t confirm why Hamilton had a problem but it could have been his chassis set-up.

• Giancarlo Fisichella believes he will soon be confirmed at Renault for 2008.
“Maybe this weekend, maybe next week,” he said at Monza. “It’s my target and my dream to be with the team for one more year. I expect confirmation again, obviously.”