Rogers Explains Volvo Issues

Team boss Garry Rogers has explained the issues both Volvo S60s faced at the Clipsal 500 Adelaide, when failing to finish on Sunday.

In a post to fans on the team’s Facebook page, Rogers said there fortunately were no terminal issues with either of the Valvoline-backed GRM cars on Sunday, and spoke happily about the positive podium result achieved by Scott McLaughlin in Race Two.  

Rogers explained the team instructed rookie Robert Dahlgren to stop during the 250km race, as a considerable amount of smoke poured from the car because of oil dripping onto the exhaust.

“Initially I thought that the oil leakage problem with Robert’s car was due to the fact that we had fractured the oil tank during the building of the car – but this was not the case,” the team owner said.  

“Without getting too technical, the exhaust on these cars creates enormous heat and whilst we took what we thought were the necessary precautions, a small plastic sender in the bottom of the oil tank melted causing minimal drops of oil from this, hence the smoke.

“It was no sense leaving the car out there – this would have only been detrimental to the other competitors.”

McLaughlin’s was a different issue – the battery voltage had become so low the team was unable to run the car's systems efficiently.

“In regards to Scott’s car I believed that the battery had failed and in some ways it had due to the fact that the intense heat in the engine bay was affecting the operation of the alternator. Therefore we ran out of the necessary voltage to operate all the systems in the car with only a handful of laps to go.

“Very disappointing after such a forceful drive from Scott with a podium finish in sight.”

Despite a fall from the top on Sunday, Rogers described the overall result as outstanding.

“Everything that we had was new to us and to be able to produce the cars with such speed both in qualifying and for the race was something we should all be very proud of,” he said.

“I am aware that we did not win a race in Adelaide but clearly the speed and engineering excellence of the S60, I am sure caught the attention of a lot of people – not just here but also a lot of my overseas colleagues knew all about it.” 

Rogers felt the team was lucky to have come away from the treacherous Clipsal 500 Adelaide street circuit relatively unscathed, compared to other competitors.

“We were very fortunate that we suffered very little body damage in Adelaide as I am sure most of you would have seen a lot of the incidents that are very prevalent on the road circuits,” he said.

The Volvos will compete in the MSS Security Challenge at the 2014 Formula One Rolex Australian Grand Prix, beginning Thursday.

McLaughlin won his first race in a V8 Supercar at the event last year.