Team Motopark have identified the roots of the problem that caused Joel’s struggles in Friday evening qualifying at Norisring.
Joel endured a torrid time in the first grid-deciding session of the Nuremberg weekend, ending up a lowly 17th on the timesheets after posting a time slower than he had managed in free practice.
Team Motopark engineers – under the leadership of technical director Andy Kohler – have analysed the situation thoroughly this evening, and come to the conclusion that two failed dampers were at fault.
“We discovered an issue with the rear dampers on Joel’s car just before qualifying, and had to change them in less than ten minutes,” team principal Timo Rumpfkeil explains. “We were able to get Joel out on track just in time, but unfortunately we did not get the new dampers correctly correlated with the rest of the set-up, which caused quite a dramatic imbalance in the car.”
Rumpfkeil continues.
“There was absolutely nothing Joel could do about it. It was a significant handling issue and it’s really surprising that he didn’t end up last to be honest. We will be going through our routines to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Joel currently leads the FIA F3 European Championship standings by five points from Maximilian Günther, who will start tomorrow’s Race 1 from fourth on the grid.
