Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Three Formula 2 teams have been handed grid penalties for this weekend’s season-opening round in Melbourne due to technical infractions in pre-season testing.
The FIA’s stewards, who were convening ahead of the first weekend of race action, were determining further penalties for violations committed on the cars of Jak Crawford (DAMS), Max Esterson (Trident), Christian Mansell and Alex Dunne (both Rodin Motorsport) that led to their laptimes from the second day of pre-season testing at Barcelona being deleted.
They had air pressure sensors “installed via the drilling of holes in the diffusor to convey the airflow beneath it into the pipeline of the pressure sensor”, which went beyond the parts modifications that can take place in official tests.
DAMS and Trident have been fined €10,000 each (£8,401) and Rodin has been fined double that, with F2 claiming that punishment is not just for the violation of regulations but to act as a deterrant against further offences, and all of the teams which illegally modified cars will have 10-place grid penalties to serve with both of their cars in the sprint and feature races this weekend.
For Rodin, this means Amaury Cordeel will be punished as he has taken over Mansell’s car. And should drivers qualify so far down the order that the grid penalties cannot be served in full, then they can be converted into pitlane starts and in-race penalties too.
The long-anticipated announcement of an in-season test at Bahrain on March 26-28 was also snuck into the championship’s statement on the penalties, a requirement since the FIA wants the penalties to extend into that test (which operates outside of its remit and is organised by F2 directly) too.
Its stewards reccomended the guilty teams to not be allowed on track on one day of the test, and that F2’s technical delegate should issue a technical bulletin for the test that would enabled modification of cars in a way that the sensors used in Barcelona could then be permissible for all other teams. F2 has agreed to implement these recommendations.