New Zealand has dropped to fourth on the A1 Grand Prix championship table after failing to register points in round three at Estoril, Portugal overnight (NZ time).
Matt Halliday drove Black Beauty to a 14th in the day's opening sprint race and a 16th in the feature race as the New Zealand team battled to break in a new engine and cope with a horror pit stop.
France earned maximum points for the second round in succession to surge to the top of the table with 50 points, pushing Brazil to second on 42 points. Switzerland is third on 34 and New Zealand fourth on 29, eight points ahead of Australia .
New Zealand team chief executive Bob McMurray said it was a tough day at the office and the team fought hard all weekend without catching a break.
"You have these difficult weekends every now and again and we're grateful to be putting this one behind us and moving down to more familiar tracks in Australia and Asia," McMurray said.
"We always thought the European leg would be trying for us but we've overachieved to a large extent despite out problems here in Portugal."
McMurray believed the New Zealand team would have been among the points in today's feature race if the compulsory pit stop had gone to plan.
Miscommunication among the pit crew saw Halliday being given the okay to go when one rear wheel was still to be changed and the car was still jacked up.
The mistake caused a mechanical problem which had to be fixed before the wheel could be swapped for Halliday to re-enter the race.
"It put Matt a lap down and effectively scuppered his chances of finishing in the points," McMurray said.
"We will be looking at our pit stop execution and working hard to ensure this type of error doesn't happen again."
Of equal concern for the team was the performance of the new engine.
Because New Zealand were the only team to finish the first four races in the opening two rounds, their original engine was the first to close in on its maximum number of kilometres.
"The old engine is good for one more race, but not two," McMurray said.
"This round was a chance for us to break in the new engine over a weekend rather than drop it in untried and untested for one race.
"But the feedback from Matt, which our data supports, is that the new engine isn't as crisp or powerful as the original engine. We have asked the Zytek manufacturers to investigate why it seems to be down on power."
Halliday said the car balance was superb but the engine problem was frustrating.
"The traction and balance wasn't an issue at all; it was the best the car had ever felt," Halliday said.
"But there was a definite lack of horsepower on the long stretches and it wasn't pulling us down the straight like it should have.
"It was a pain that the wet weather during the practice sessions meant we didn't have the chance to really give the car a good blowout and appreciate we had a problem that needed fixing."
Halliday refused to blame his pit crew for the disastrous pit stop, saying it was the only time they hadn't operated at 100 per cent efficiency all season.
"It was a frustrating weekend but the main thing is that everyone worked really hard and the heads didn't drop. We didn't give up at any stage and we learnt a lot.
"We still worked on developing the car and if we can sort out the engine problem we're be in good shape for the next round in Australia."
Round four at Eastern Creek near Sydney takes place in two weeks.
- NZPA
Motorsport: Disappointing Portugal round for NZ
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