source: dcanews.com
In keeping with the difficulties already experienced this weekend at the G.I. Joe's 200 in Portland Oregon, the Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing entry developed a gearbox problem at the start of today's race necessitating an early retirement from the event. The team has had difficulties all weekend long, but was hoping that their luck would change and they could earn another top 10 finish and improve in the standings.
A disappointed Monteiro reflected on the weekend's events. "What can I say? We've had gearbox problems all weekend. We fixed it yesterday, the guys looked at it seemed fine and I didn't have any problems with it in the warm up this morning. We've got some new pieces that we need to look at again. Our problem surfaced on the 1st lap and we just couldn't get it to work. The whole weekend's been off; just bad luck. We needed to get some laps in here and hopefully score some points, but that didn't happen. Now we go to test this week and we'll definitely work on the problems we had this weekend. I'm very confident that the guys will take care of everything and we'll be back on track for Cleveland."
Team owner Emerson Fittipaldi was equally frustrated with the weekend. "It's a pity what happened," he said, "because Tiago and the team have been doing great work. Tiago was gentle with the gearbox, but all weekend we had problems. We know now that it was an electrical problem, which is something out of the team's control. It was certainly a tough weekend, but we're putting it behind us and looking forward to Cleveland."
The team will now travel to Elkhart Lake and Mid Ohio for testing prior to the upcoming Cleveland race. The US Bank Presents the Cleveland Grand Prix will air live on CBS, Saturday, July 6th at 3:30 pm ET.