• Williams news

Williams investigates cause of Senna's burns in Singapore

ESPN Staff
September 26, 2012 « FIA gives Austin seal of approval | 'Mercedes offer him much greater freedom on the commercial side' »
Bruno Senna retired on the final lap of the Singapore Grand Prix after losing power © Sutton Images
Enlarge

Williams is investigating the reasons for its double retirement at the Singapore Grand Prix as well as the cause of some burn marks to Bruno Senna's back.

Both Pastor Maldonado and Senna retired from the race, with Maldonado running as high as third before an unfortunately-timed safety car dropped him down the order and a hydraulic issue forced him to retire.

"We are currently investigating the failures and have full confidence in getting to the root cause quickly and implementing the required fixes as soon as possible," chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said. "At this stage we do not believe that the heat played a part in the failures."

Senna retired from the race on the final lap after working his way into the points from 22nd on the grid and, according to Williams, emerged from the car with burn marks to his back.

"We have a good idea [of what caused the burns] but are still investigating just to make sure that we have covered all potential causes."

After Maldonado qualified on the front row, Gillan added that the team would also take some positives out of the weekend.

"It gives us a tremendous amount of confidence," he said. "We saw that the car was capable of qualifying on the front row and that the race pace was equally impressive. Both drivers did a very good job in the race, with Pastor fighting hard at the front and Bruno carving his way from the back into a points scoring position before having to retire the car."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
ESPN Staff Close