APRIL 4, 2005

Ferrari gearbox mysteries

Ferrari arrived in Bahrain with two F2005s. The spare car was an F2004M. On Friday morning Rubens Barrichello's gearbox suffered what Ross Brawn described as a "catastrophic" problem. It was so catastrophic in fact that the team did not have the parts to repair the gearbox. A new unit had to be flown out from Italy. What was odd however that it was not until Sunday morning that the new box arrived. Given that the flight from Europe is only six hours, it is odd that it took so long for the new unit to arrive. The only logical explanation of this delay is that the team did not have a replacement ready in Italy and that parts had to be produced to make one.

The other odd thing is why the gearbox failed as the Ferrari F2005 had completed a total of 2688 miles of testing before the race weekend. This should have been plenty of time to get rid of any major glitches. A possible explanation is that in the rush to get the F2005s out to Bahrain something was overlooked.