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McLaren MP4-24 Reliability Problems Again, at Jerez

Bad weather at Jerez earlier today forced two of the teams present at the Spanish track to officially end their group test this week. Rain started to downpour from the very first laps of Thursday's testing, but Renault and Force India refused to go ahead with their planned mileage and kept their cars in the pits.

Under the conditions, there are only 6 teams still running their 2009 challengers in Spain. However, McLaren is not one of them. And that's not because the Woking-based team decided to take the Renault-way out, but because reigning champion Lewis Hamilton only got to run for a few laps until his car broke down in the middle of the circuit.

The McLaren MP4-24 had to be taken to the team's pits on a flatbed truck, suffering from reliability problems. This is the second day running Hamilton's preparations for the new season go wrong, as his car had a suspension problem that heavily affected his mileage on Wednesday. The rear of his car caught on fire during yesterday's morning session, but the mechanics managed to solve the problem in time for Hamilton to make the most of his afternoon mileage.

According to planetF1.com, it seems that Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen is also having some tough times adjusting to his Ferrari F60 seat, as he is reportedly suffering from sore back problems due to the uncomfortable feature.

However, we don't know whether the below par seat is also to blame for Kimi's latest shunt on Thursday or not. The Finnish driver seems to have forgotten to take a look at the traffic light when entering the track and proceeded to its exit under red light. He did, however, stop a few tenths of meters later, in order to avoid a penalty from the Jerez officials.
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