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[McLaren Fan]

Its ironic the changes they have made to their engine are under the guise of reliability

[Denthúl]

Its ironic the changes they have made to their engine are under the guise of reliability

Hehe, I was thinking the same thing, but maybe some other changes they made more recently (the ones that you are allowed to make) caused this.

Either way, they have to do something about this and fast. This one was not so much hurtful to them as the one that happened last time, because Kimi was sixth if I remember, but still they can't lose points like that.

Indeed.

If they don't fix it before the next race, then it could be bad for them, as we have Spa and Monza coming up, which are both going to require long sections of the track to be run flat-out. It's entirely possible that Raikkonen's engine was on its second race and he'd over-worked it in Hungary, but something leads me to believe that they may have changed a part and replaced it with something a little more fragile than its predecessor. You have to wonder, though, how much would they lose in terms of horsepower relative to McLaren if they reverted to the previous parts? Assuming they had done something.

[Mikep99]

Ferrari confirm con rod failure on Kimi V8
http://www.manipef1.com/news/2008/index.php?id=1915&redirect=1
Ferrari confirmed today that Kimi Räikkönen's engine failure was caused by the breakage of a connecting rod in the left bank of his V8, the second such problem in two races. Kimi was running in sixth at the time of the failure, which saw him lose more ground in the drivers' championship, with team-mate Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton moving further ahead with their 1st and 2nd places respectively.

“Initial analysis of the engine fitted to Kimi Räikkönen's car, which arrived in Maranello this morning, confirmed the breakage of a con rod,” began a statement issued by Ferrari. “Currently underway are further checks to try and understand what provoked the failure.”

The Maranello-based team also revealed that engineers had been worried about the engine's reliability, given that the connecting rods in Kimi's engine had come from the same batch used in Massa's Budapest powerplant, which failed three laps from the end of the race. However, given that an engine change would have cost Kimi 10 places on the grid, and the difficulty of overtaking, it was decided to take the risk of running the old engine, which had survived the swealtering 70-lap race in Hungary.

Ferrari returns to the track tomorrow at Monza, taking advantage of their second of four 'joker' days of the testing season, in which they are allowed to run an inexperienced driver outside the usual schedule. Italian Andrea Bertolini will have the honour of lapping the F2008 around the legendary venue, before handing over to Felipe Massa for Wednesday, when all nine other teams will join the Scuderia. Massa will also drive on Thursday, before handing over to Räikkönen, as the team perpares for the Italian Grand Prix at the same venue just under three weeks from now.