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Mercedes denies flaw in race car

Mercedes has denied its CLR sportscar was unsafe to race in last weekend's Le Mans 24 Hours, following three major accidents

Scot Peter Dumbreck's car somersaulted off the track and into trees during the race, while the sister car of Mark Webber flipped on to its roof during qualifying last Thursday.

Webber's CLR was then rebuilt, only for the Australian to suffer a similar accident at the end of the famous Mulsanne Straight during the race-day warm-up.

Dumbreck and Webber sustained only bruising, but the latter's second crash left the CLR beyond immediate repair and the car was withdrawn.

Mercedes resisted calls to withdraw the two remaining CLRs from the race.

Marque motorsport boss Norbert Haug made the decision after consulting the drivers and data.

He said, 'The decision to race was not any easy one, but from our point of view it was not at all a gamble at that stage.'

Asked on Monday if he believed the cars were safe to race, Haug said, 'Yes, otherwise they would not have raced. Bernd Schneider [Mercedes' lead driver] said I did the right thing.'

He said none of the nine Mercedes drivers had given the team any indication that the CLR was potentially unstable, especially when in the slipstream of another car.

Haug said he believed that a collision with a slower car could have played a part in Dumbreck's accident.

'I'm getting reports that Peter hit a slow car at the start of the lap on which he crashed,' he said. 'Our assumption is that he could have lost his splitters then.'

Haug promised a full investigation into the accidents.

Until then, the future of the Mercedes CLR project remains unclear.

The car was scheduled to race in two sportscar sprints on the Norisring street circuit on July 3-4, before moving Stateside for the final three rounds of the American Le Mans Series.

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