Bahrain: Petrovs Renault retirement

In this weekends race Petrov retired with e a suspension problem, it transpires the ride height adjusting shim fell out between the carbon pushrod and the titanium end fitting,  Here James Allison explains “On lap 11, Vitaly reported that the car wasn’t behaving normally and he began losing a lot of lap time to Barrichello. We called him into the pits for a precautionary check and found a problem with   the   right-front   suspension   pushrod   that   forced   us   to   retire   the   car.   Upon   further investigation, it transpired that the pushrod had been touching on the chassis when running on very heavy fuel at the start of the race. This damaged the bolt that attaches the pushrod to the car, and meant we lost a shim from the suspension, causing the DNF. Robert preferred a slightly different ride height and was fortunate not to encounter the same problem. We are, of course, disappointed  that  we  did  not  discover this  problem  during  pre-season  testing.  The  parts  in question will be modified for the next race to ensure that it cannot recur.”

At the top of the pushrod You can see where it splits to allow the shim to be inserted

 

Pushrods: these are normally used to adjust ride height, adding shims between the carbon pushrod and the metal top section