MSV TO INVESTIGATE F3 CAR TRANSMISSIONS

Motorsport Vision Racing will conduct a full review of the transmission in the BRDC Formula 3 Championship cars following a series of setbacks for teams at Brands Hatch last weekend.

Some teams and drivers have complained about transmission issues, with much of the focus being placed on the sintered clutch and hydraulic actuator system. Last weekend a number of frontrunning cars – including championship challengers Toby Sowery (Lanan Racing) and Enaam Ahmed (Douglas Motorsport) – suffered problems with their car’s transmissions.

MSV’S group head of operations Giles Butterfield told Motorsport News that any repeated technical issues would be investigated and taken seriously by MSVR.

“We will look into the transmission and clutch system of the cars following some issues last weekend, but we don’t believe there is an inherent problem with the specification of the car at all,” he said.

“We understand that it is frustrating for people to have issues, and we don’t want to see drivers non-scoring or retiring due to technical issues. But not all problems last weekend were clutch-related, some were traced back to be electrical or hydraulic upon further inspection by teams.

“Drivers also need to take care of a clutch. It’s not a carbon clutch, so you can overheat it and break it if you really push too hard, so they need to understand the limitations of its use. The alternative is a very costly carbon option, which we’d like to avoid.

“Teams have done hundreds of pre-season testing miles and have had limited problems and we as a company have tried and tested these clutches. We wouldn’t have fitted them if we didn’t see them as up to the job.

“Any further problems will be monitored closely and if there is a recurrent issue we’ll work with the teams to fix it.”