Renault & Kubica drop KERS, gearbox penalty for Glock 18 Apr 2009
Just three cars look set to run KERS in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, after Renault and BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica decided not to use the system for Shanghai.
Ferrari announced before the weekend that they would not be running KERS here following the reliability problems they experienced at the last round in Malaysia. Now Renault have also opted to drop their system after evaluating Friday practice data.
Kubica, who did not race KERS in either Melbourne or Sepang, also used Friday’s sessions to see if it could bring him an advantage at the Shanghai International Circuit. However, with tyre degradation already proving an issue, the Pole found the additional weight only complicated matters and hence will not use it either.
Renault’s and Kubica’s decisions means that only the two McLarens and Nick Heidfeld’s BMW Sauber are now expected to use KERS in Sunday’s race.
In further changes to Renault’s package, an interim revised diffuser was added to Fernando Alonso’s car ahead of Saturday’s final practice. However, the session did not go well for the Spaniard, who completed just six laps in the R29 and finished 19th in the times, 14 places down on team mate Nelson Piquet.
There were also technical issues at Red Bull and Toyota. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel suffered identical driveshaft problems on their RB5s, while Timo Glock faces a five-place grid penalty after transmission gremlins necessitated a gearbox change on his TF109.
