Andretti team forced to revert back to ‘stock’ motor
The American outfit formed Andretti Technologies to develop its own motor and inverter for the ATEC-01, which uses a revised four-speed Hewland gearbox.
However, a troubled testing program – which ends today (Tuesday) – has prompted it to go back to the Spark SRT_01E that utilizes a McLaren electronics system and five-speed Hewland gearbox for the second season of the all-electric championship.
After a difficult first two tests yielded no timed runs and only a handful of installation laps, Andretti experienced further issues on Monday that prevented its cars running at all.
It managed to convert two of its cars to the Spark specification overnight, which enabled Simona de Silvestro and Robin Frijns to rack up 36 laps between them on Tuesday morning – with ex-Formula 1 test driver Frijns ending up 10th fastest.
"We've taken the decision we're going to step back," Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths told AUTOSPORT. "It was made at the very top, collectively.
"The season-one package has proven to be very reliable and we've great confidence in the technology from McLaren and Spark, so it is the best way forward for the short term.
"We considered all the different factors: the limited amount of testing we've done, what we believe is the potential of the new powertrain – which is very great – and our responsibility to ourselves, our sponsors and the series to show up and present a good image.
"We've effectively lost five days of testing. We could have continued to fight through issues today but if we then made the decision tonight to switch back we would have lost another day and our preparations for Beijing would have taken a further step back." More at Autosport