Ferrari test driver Marc Gene has suggested that the pit-lane speed limiter problem that cost
Heikki Kovalainen fourth place in Melbourne at the weekend was the same one that caused the Finn's team-mate
Lewis Hamilton to lose half a minute and with it the world drivers' crown in last year's season-closing Brazilian Grand Prix.
Following the Australian Grand Prix, McLaren-Mercedes new boy Kovalainen said that he had accidentally knocked the pit-lane speed limiter button as he reached to tear away a rip-off strip from his helmet visor whilst crossing the start-finish line for the penultimate time.
The fleeting lack of drive allowed
Fernando Alonso whom the 26-year-old had just succeeded in passing to gratefully reclaim the spot in a flash, leaving the 2005 GP2 Series vice-champion down in a frustrated fifth place at the flag.
Writing in his regular column for Spanish daily newspaper
El Mundo, however, Gene maintained he was convinced that a similar incident was also responsible for Hamilton suddenly slowing down in the title-deciding Interlagos outing something
McLaren have strenuously denied.
I was surprised, the 33-year-old former
Williams racer admitted. It is incredible that McLaren still have not done anything about it after that incident cost them so dearly [in Brazil].
The Spaniard added that
Ferrari's own speed limit system can only be activated when a driver is in a low gear, not at close to top speed on a main straight as Kovalainen was at the time of his own problem in Albert Park.
