Planet-F1

Teams 'struggling' to get KERS ready in time

Wednesday 23rd July 2008

Getting the Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) ready for use for next season is proving to be an "enormous" challenge for a lot of teams, according to Toyota team president John Howett.

The spotlight is back on KERS after a BMW mechanic suffered an electric shock when he came into contact with a car that was fitted with the device during testing in Spain.

This comes just a week after a Red Bull factory at Milton Keynes was evacuated after a battery system test of their KERS went wrong.

"The challenges are enormous for everybody," Howett told Autosport.

"We're all fighting very hard to have a raceable, safe KERS, but whether it is achievable or not has to be seen.

"I think if you read between the lines of a lot of teams I think a lot of people are struggling."

Honda team principal Ross Brawn is another one who is unsure about whether KERS will be used once the season gets underway next year.

"I don't know for certain," Brawn told Autosport. "We will if it's a performance gain, and we haven't done enough work yet to know if it's a performance gain. We are scheduling to start the season with it, but we will see how it develops.

"It's rather too early to say, but the new car is designed to accommodate it and the day that it becomes a positive, net performance gain we will start to race it."