Flavio Briatore has apologised to his drivers Hekki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella after a refuelling problem caused a change of strategy in Sunday’s race. Both drivers were forced to make an extra stop, ultimately causing the team to drop valuable points.
“The team has to say sorry to the drivers for the problems we had,” Briatore said. “The car was better than at the first three races – Heikki had a very consistent weekend that showed what he can do; Fisi battled all the way in spite of some difficult circumstances. But now we need to investigate the fuel rig problems and ensure they don’t happen again. We have made progress and that is positive but every point is still vital and we need to ensure that we take the maximum from every race at this stage of the season.”
Pat Symonds has also gone on record about the fuelling problems. “Our race was severely compromised by problems with our refuelling,” he began. “The problems occurred on both cars and with both fuel rigs in various combinatins which is more than mere coincidence. We are currently investigating the source of those problems.”
