{"id":3558,"date":"2010-03-21T10:56:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T14:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=3558"},"modified":"2010-03-21T10:53:23","modified_gmt":"2010-03-21T14:53:23","slug":"dennis-suspects-vettel-ran-out-of-fuel-in-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/dennis-suspects-vettel-ran-out-of-fuel-in-bahrain\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis suspects Vettel ran out of fuel in Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Ron Dennis has been quoted as questioning Red Bull&#8217;s claim that Sebastian Vettel suffered a spark plug failure whilst leading the 2010 season opener in Bahrain last weekend.<\/span><\/h5>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Initially after the 22-year-old pole sitter gave up the lead of the race to the eventual three podium-getters, Red Bull diagnosed an exhaust problem.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A subsequent media statement clarified that it was actually a spark plug problem within the Renault engine that was the matter, but Spain&#8217;s AS newspaper reported last week that Vettel simply slowed to prevent running out of fuel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The lap times dropped so rapidly that one can imagine the electronic control unit (ECU) switching to a conservative programme to save fuel,&#8221; Dennis is quoted as saying in a report of the Cologne newspaper Express.<\/p>\n<p>Briton Dennis is the chairman and a 15 per cent shareholder of McLaren Group, whose subsidiary McLaren Electronic Systems (MES) supplies the control ECU run mandatorily by all F1 teams.<\/p>\n<p>The 62-year-old was speaking late last week at the launch of McLaren&#8217;s new MP4-12C production supercar.<\/p>\n<p>His theory would explain how Vettel&#8217;s RB6, having perhaps conserved enough fuel for a final surge, was able to record fully competitive times in the final laps to prevent Nico Rosberg from passing.<\/p>\n<p>During Dennis&#8217; long reign as McLaren team boss, Adrian Newey worked for a long time with the British team.\u00a0 And Newey, the main author of the RB6, is renowned for pushing the envelope with his F1 designs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The problem with the Red Bull could be design,&#8221; Dennis continued.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It could be the fuel tank is too small, or the fuel consumption is higher than they expected,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Renault&#8217;s engine boss Rob White told Express that the French marque has also been analysing the cause of Vettel&#8217;s Bahrain problem.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The investigation to identify the reason for Vettel&#8217;s engine problem is ongoing,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A problem with the spark plug was found, but we have no reason to suspect a defect in the component itself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #999999;\">\u00a9 RIF|GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ron Dennis has been quoted as questioning Red Bull&#8217;s claim that Sebastian Vettel suffered a spark plug failure whilst leading the 2010 season opener in Bahrain last weekend. \u00a0 Initially after the 22-year-old pole sitter gave up the lead of the race to the eventual three podium-getters, Red Bull diagnosed an exhaust problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[396,5262,129,1090,880,164,1089],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3559,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions\/3559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}