Renault apologise to Fisichella


By Renault F1
March 14 2006

Renault have apologised to Giancarlo Fisichella after his nightmare in Bahrain where his engine was vastly down on power and eventually forced the Italian to retire his Renault with a hydrolic problem early in the race
Giancarlo Fisichella endured a difficult weekend in the number 2 Renault in Bahrain. He suffered a mysterious problem with an ancillary engine component in qualifying, that robbed him of approximately 50 bhp, and in spite of the team’s best efforts to resolve this overnight, and the initial belief that it had been cured, the problem recurred in the race. The performance deficit Fisico had to contend with was clear from the speed traps: he was the second slowest car, at 297.3 kph compared to a quickest speed of 308.3 kph for Fernando. In the circumstances, the Italian did a quite exceptional job to set the lap-times he did, as Pat Symonds made very clear after the race: “We have apologised to Giancarlo for the engine problem, which left him something like fifty horsepower down from his maximum. But when you take that into account, he was driving an exceptional race.” As for Fisi, he was able to rationalise the experience quite neatly: “Last year, I won the first race then had a difficult season. This year, I hope it will be the other way round – a bad race then a lot of good results!” Starting with this weekend in Sepang

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