Andretti ditches season two powertrain

The team, which has completed only a handful of laps with the new ATEC-01 technical package, has stated that it will aim to develop the new package instead for season three in 2016/17.

Motorsport.com has learned that the Andretti ATEC-01 season two package, which featured a newly designed carbon gearbox, suffered from a series of coolant leaks which shorted out the motors.

This was on top of software glitches which stymied the team in the first two Donington tests.

The Andretti team is running two cars at Donington Park today in season-one specification with Robin Frijns and Simona de Silvestro undertaking the first effective laps for the team

Andretti, which has partnered with TE Connectivity and Houston Mechatronics in building, developing and having a season two powertrain homologated, will run for the whole of season two with the McLaren-Hewland motor and gearbox respectively.

The loss of face by reverting to the season one technical package is probably now the least of Andretti's concerns as it prepares for the first race in just six weeks' time.

Andretti will face a double whammy now it has been forced to revert back to the season one powertrain package.

New software updates that can change motor maps and optimise internal communication between motor and battery have been introduced this season.

While the software is available to all teams, any outfit which changes back to the original season one tech package will have to learn the new software in context with their own particular software models and have to re-set and re-learn with the McLaren-Hewland package.

With the cars leaving for Beijing this week, it leaves the team with just a few hours to test the software in relation to the season one package.