Last night Mario had quite a bit of tinkering to do on the car. The front wing had fatigued in places because of the vibrations and he had to stabilize it with an ugly looking support strap.
However, within minutes of leaving the camp this morning, we noticed we had a far bigger problem. The torsion spring (left rear) snapped, leading to the wheel sitting on its end stop.
As a result there is no support on the left rear corner and it just hangs down. Throughout the day people came up to us to point out that we looked lopsided. The car definitely is less stabil to drive. It feels a bit like you’re riding on a water bed.
To spare the axel from unnecessary impact, we thus had to take it very slowly. We were limping along on the rough tracks in first and second gear only to try and avoid as many of the holes and bumps as we could.
Mario wasn’t too happy to not be able to compete, but I was quite pleased. The fact that Mario never wanted to stop and take photos had been the cause of quite some tension, but that issue had now resolved itself.
The scenery was once again amazing today! We passed over a snow topped mountain and nearly got stuck in a sand dune. It was almost 21:00 when we limped into camp and were greeted by a swarm of mosquitoes and the Swiss participants who assumed we would land on the back of a tow truck.