The TeamVodafone crew scrambles to get the #1 Commodore back on to the track during the L&H 500.
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By Briar Gunther 2:19 PM Tue 14 September, 2010
Source: V8 Supercars Australia
A manufacturing issue with the front splitter ultimately cost TeamVodafone a one-two finish at last weekend’s L&H 500.
Jamie Whincup was leading the race when a mount on the #1 Commodore’s splitter broke. Teammate Craig Lowndes took the race lead as vibrations from Whincup’s broken splitter loosened a bracket on the engine oil cooler.
TeamVodafone Team Manager, Roland Dane, told BigPond Sport there was a manufacturing issue with the splitter.
“It was the fact that we had to remake some splitters pretty quickly in the last month and it’s a failure of one of the new splitters we made,” he said.
“We know how to make them properly and that one wasn’t made properly.
“Obviously they weren’t all like that because the #888 (car) was fine.”
The L&H 500 was the race debut of Holden’s Series II VE Commodore but Dane said this had no relevance to the splitter’s manufacturing issue.
“The bottom part of (the splitter) doesn’t differ. It’s got nothing to do with it being the VE Mark II,” he said.
The manufacturing of the team’s splitters is outsourced but made under Triple Eight supervision.
“It was our fault,” Dane said.
“Similar things have happened with splitters generally at tracks with high kerbs where the splitter can get smashed but Phillip Island isn’t like that. It was not a track issue, it’s a manufacturing issue.”
Whincup believes winning his third straight Championship is now going to be tough but he was glad the splitter problem arose at the L&H 500 instead of at next month’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
“It’s better that we learn about the splitter issue now rather than 10 laps from the finish at Bathurst," Whincup said.
