Vettel mystified by suspension failure
- Published on 03 Nov 2019 22:57
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- By: Fergal Walsh
Sebastian Vettel has admitted confusion over the suspension failure that put him out of the US Grand Prix on Sunday.
The German, who started from the first row, slipped back to seventh place after a handful of laps as he struggled to find grip.
Vettel reported major understeer problems in the opening laps to his team, who confirmed that they could see the problems in the data - but had no sure way of fixing the problem.
On lap 8 of the race, the rear suspension gave way on Vettel's car, eliminating him from the race.
Speaking about his grand prix, Vettel said: "I had a decent start, I was just on the dirty side. And then I had no place to go at Turn 1, but there was no grip and that was the case for the entire beginning of the race.
"I was really struggling for grip, especially at right-handers. It was a very different car so I asked them [the team] if they seen something or if something is broken.
"A couple of laps after that we had the failure. I assume that it must have been an issue before. I don't know if it's related to the track, but on the other hand we've done so many laps. Why now, and not Friday?"
Vettel currently sits fifth in the drivers' championship with two races left to run, 19 points down on teammate Charles Leclerc, who holds third place behind the two Mercedes drivers.
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Replies (6)
Login to replyf1ski
Posts: 726
seems to me the problems with understeer early the rear suspension was already failing.
abhidbgt
Posts: 283
Could be but I think it aggravated with that trip over that curb.
JuJuHound
Posts: 352
It was visible from corner 1 that Vettel's car was strugglin on bumps, maybe he destroyed his suspension a day before or on the lap on the grid and Italian mechanics were to busy cleaning their plates from spaghetti
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
He absolutely did. I think the only reason they haven't said so is to save Seb's face. There is nothing mysterious about the suspension failure.
Patentprutser
Posts: 390
Albon touched his right rear wheel in turn 1. Maybe that caused the failure. Nearly nobody noticed it. It was shown at Dutch television
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
It seems pretty obvious that the bumps and the addition of the curbs for the race just beat the crap out of the cars. VER had cracked wings and I would be very surprised if almost every car didn't experience some sort of chassis or suspension damage during that race. Things like that are going to happen when you let the drivers run wide all or most of the weekend and then put curbs up for the race. If those curbs were there on Friday I don't think we would have seen the kind of damage to the cars we saw today.