In a break between practice sessions of official testing for the ABB FIA World Championship in Valencia, a fire was detected in the pitlane area, adjacent to the Mahindra Racing garage.
The on-track Incident Response Team acted quickly and efficiently to contain the fire and minimise the damage caused. One person was taken to hospital for precautionary checks but released without treatment.
However, as a result of the fire, Mahindra Racing sustained damage to its trackside infrastructure. The damage includes but is not limited to the team’s IT infrastructure, engineering stations and to both race cars.
As a result, the team has been forced to amend its programme for the remainder of the official test, following an announcement by Formula E that sessions will resume from 14:00 (CEST) today.
For today’s session and tomorrow’s two sessions, Mahindra Racing will run one car after a tremendous effort by the trackside team to recover after this unprecedented setback, and to prepare the #48 car, driven by Edoardo Mortara.
The car will be driven this afternoon by Mortara, with a decision to be taken this evening on driving duties for the remainder of the test.
Mahindra Racing CEO Frederic Bertrand comments:
First of all, I would like to extend my thanks to the Incident Response Team. Although we have sustained extensive damage to our trackside operations, without a doubt their quick actions helped to avoid a much larger incident.
I would also like to express my gratitude to the FIA, Formula E and to each and every single one of our competitors. The support for Mahindra Racing at this difficult time has been unanimous and is a clear indication to me that we exist and compete as one family within the paddock.
I am extremely proud of everyone at the Mahindra Racing team. It has taken a huge amount of time, effort, and dedication to get us to a position where we can resume testing with a single car in Valencia this week. Although this comes with some obvious sporting disadvantages, we are all looking forward to resuming our programme.
Source: Mahindra Racing
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