Apr.8 (GMM) A cursory assessment tells another tale, but KERS is not responsible for the struggles of some formula one teams this season, Pedro de la Rosa insists
At the opening two races of 2009, only seven cars used the voluntary energy recovery technology, while fully non-KERS teams including Brawn, Toyota and Williams excelled
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen grappled with his malfunctioning KERS unit throughout the Sepang weekend, and Fernando Alonso believes Renault should reconsider its deployment of the heavy technology prior to China
But McLaren test driver de la Rosa told Spain’s Marca newspaper: “Our problems are in other areas, not KERS
“If it was just a matter of getting rid of it and going faster, we would have done that already,” the Spaniard added
“We are not using it for commercial reasons or anything like that, it is simply that it makes us faster. The balance of the car is almost identical with or without (KERS). It does not harm us,” de la Rosa insisted
It is also true that, while assessing the wisdom of deploying KERS, Alonso burst up the grid from ninth to third at the start in Malaysia
Williams is fine-tuning an unique flywheel-based KERS system, and technical director Sam Michael said: “We want it on our car as soon as possible.”n
