Take this car - NO!!! - take that one - NO!!! - the other one

[Wrex]

from Autorace.com

Perfectly sound explanation for Minardi confusion at re-start of German GP

Confusion surrounded the Minardi team at the German GP when Fernando Alonso was seen in Tarso Marques' race car for the re-start of the German GP and Tarso Marques in Fernando Alonso's race car.

Fernando Alonso's car caught fire on the starting grid for the first start and he made his way to the pits for the team's spare car. At the same stage the team received news that Tarso Marques' car is experiencing the same problem and having already assigned Alonso the team's spare, proceeded in preparing Alonso's race car for Marques.

Both drivers started from the pit lane, but after the accident between Luciano Burti and Michael Schumacher Fernando Alonso experienced another problem, this time with the spare car and returned to the pits, leaving the team only one option and that was to prepare Tarso Marques' race car for Alonso.

Spokesperson for the team, Graham Jones was quoted by Formula1.com: "The problem is that Fernando is quite a bit shorter than Tarso, so what we ended up with for the second race, and they both were able to go out and take their correct positions on the grid - we ended up with Fernando in Tarso's race car, with his correct seat but Tarso's pedals, so he couldn't really reach them. We had Tarso in Fernando's race car with his seat but pedals that were up to close to him, so his knees were hitting the top of the cockpit. And the other problem of course is that Fernando is a left foot braker and Tarso is a right foot braker. So the pedals were not correctly set either. So that was how they took the start".

Oh thats what happened, that makes perfect sense. Who's running this 'Abbott and Costello' outfit anyway?

[Alan Jones]

Some days you just shouldn't get out of bed..........

[bella]

i read their press release after the race, and came away none the wiser too....

didn't the spare car's accelerator pedal fail or something? it was sheer comedy...

[bella]

just thought i'd add this :
from formula1.com

"Fernando came through to the finish in that car in tenth place and Tarso unfortunately had a clutch problem which then in turn led to a failure of third gear, and he ended up pulling out on lap 27 after the pit stop. He praised the car, he said it was really good, it was well balanced, he liked it, it was just uncomfortable because his knees were hitting the top of the monocoque, so that was it."

soooo, if fernando had taken his proper car, and tarso had taken his, fernando would have retired cause of that dodgy gearbox, and tarso would have finished.

bloody hell. stop confusing me!!
(formula1.com does have a couple of news articles from the minardi guy, which are very interesting. worth a read if you're bored)

[badoer fan]

Thank God I know now. I was watching it in Spain, and we didn't have ITV (I never thought that could be a bad thing) so I watched RTL, and i was just screaming "Where are they". All I could get was "fernando Alonso und Tarso Marques blublublubl die Boxen (which was pits I worked out later)"

[AndyF]

Hopefully at in Hungary, Alonso will get into the spare Ferrari!!!

[Dino IV]

Thanks for the info Wrex! Geez, no wonder I couldn't get this fom Spanish television either, like Badoer fan. Good to be back from work and vacation to read all the stuff firsthand again.

[RWC]

OOOoooh man! Fantastic,laughed for ages!Thanks wrex