Adrian Newey Q&A

"It was a clutch problem. He had clutch slip right at the end, but exactly why, we don't know at the moment."



"No..."



"Well, we have had occasional clutch problems, but what the cause of this is, we don't know. And it may be that we never will, because it got so hot it probably destroyed the evidence."



"He was still in gear, but the clutch was slipping. There was a lack of drive and it just overheated and finally caught fire."



"He had backed off, he was taking it a bit easier, but after that you leave it to the driver. He's got the usual problems - tell them to back off too much, and they lose concentration."



"No."



"The way they were leaving the pits was quite violent, yes. It may have contributed..."



"A lack of familiarity with the new systems, really."



"No, I think it's unfair to blame the driver. It's a situation that perhaps we hadn't properly rehearsed. Something happened which we hadn't properly envisaged, which caused the problem. David did something slightly differently, but I have to say that the system probably should have coped with it, so there's no point in allocating blame. It's a problem associated with the change of regulations."



"We thought it was the best way to get past him. That's it."



"He had certainly had a gain from it. It's difficult to quantify, but probably he could have gained at least a second at each stop through that."



"It's all about qualifying. We could have done, but you have to qualify first. It's a judgement we make at the time."