KL Minardi have pulled out of this afternoon's Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on safety grounds after a series of wing failures. Team chief Paul Stoddart took the decision after Australian driver Mark Webber was sent spinning into the gravel during warm-up this morning when his rear wing failed. The problem came after Webber and Malaysia's Alex Yoong lost their front wings in separate incidents during qualifying and practice on the Circuit de Catalunya yesterday.
"One of the toughest decisions a team owner ever has to make it to withdraw its cars from a grand prix, but that is exactly what we are doing today sadly," said Stoddart. "We are confident we could have run safely this afternoon. But given the circumstances it would have been irresponsible to do so until we have had time to take the part back to the factory and totally analyse it."
Stoddart, whose team is based in England and Italy, believes the rear wing failure could have been caused by a fault in manufacturing. The Australian sent all the front wings back to the team factory near Faenza yesterday for modifications to be carried out. Stoddart said the front wing problem had been solved but the team did not have time to fix the problem with the rear wing before the race.
"It's a tough decision because the team did an amazing job overnight to get the parts to Italy and back here. I really feel for Mark and Alex; it has not been a good weekend for us. These cars are on the edge. You have to go to the absolute edge of technology with them. But you cannot take chances, and it would have been irresponsible to race on safety grounds."
Webber, who came fifth in the season opener in Australia in a dream F1 debut, and Yoong had finished 21st and 22nd in qualifying.
Filed by Johnny Proby
