Photo: Macau Grand Prix
PHM Racing’s Rashid Al Dhaheri and Matteo De Palo, and Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael, have all been disqualified from the Macau Grand Prix.
On both of PHM’s cars, the stone guard was found to be not in conformity with the technical regulations, with stewards determining they had been modified compared against the design supplied by the manufacturer.
The stone guard is fitted in front of the radiator and intercooler, and on PHM’s cars the lower portion had been removed.
PHM argued that the classification of the part meant it could manufacturer it itself, and “considering that they do not have the specications of such part other than the external frame dimensions, that they could modify it to use only a part of the protected area”.
However the FIA’s technical delegate determined that such parts should still match the design of bought ones, and added “while the competitor could choose whether to use the part in its entirety or not, they could not alter the design such that only one area was protected by the wire mesh and another area was open and unprotected”.
It was also found that PHM had removed Al Dhaheri’s car from parc ferme, taken it to their garage and started working on it before it was due to be released from parc ferme post-race. This seperate offence also would have led to disqualification of the car had the technical delegate’s decision not already removed the car from the race results.
PHM submitted an intention to appeal the first decision, meaning the FIA had to secure the illegal parts for later examination.
De Palo and Al Dhaheri had finished fifth and sixth, with Evans GP’s Cooper Webster and Prema’s Alex Dunne now occupying those positions in the final classification.
Nael had been right behind Al Dhaheri before he was shown the black-and-orange flag in the race due to a damaged nosecone and had to pit. He stalled when in the pits, and members of his team pushed his car to get the engine started again. This was a breach of the sporting regulations, and the only true beneficiary from his disqualification was TOM’S driver Rikuto Kobayashi, who as the last driver to meet the chequered flag jumps from 15th to 12th.
Prema’s Freddie Slater and MP Motorsport’s Mattia Colnaghi were also considered classified finishers, but Slater crashed out on the last lap and Colnaghi’s race ended two laps before the end.