End-of-day report. Post 14. I read the document, I did not see the session: there is no television at the post.
Observation. Qualifying, Q2, entry to turn 5. One car on a cool-down lap, on the racing line. Another behind it, on its final lap. The second abandons its lap. It finishes 14th. The first finishes 11th.
Decision of the heated room: “unnecessarily impeded”. Got in the way for no reason. Then, in the same document, no penalty, for “extraordinary mitigating circumstances”. I read it twice. The document is right twice.
Explanation given. Audi told the stewards that, according to the official timing supplier, the car behind had already taken the chequered flag. The information was passed to the driver by radio. The data was not fully synchronised. It displayed correctly after a short delay. Too late: the car was already behind.
The stewards add that the other team, going by its driver’s radio messages, had believed the same thing, on the same data. Two pit walls, one error, neatly copied.
At the post, I ran the situation again. Say the radio tells me “end of session”. I put away the blue flag. A car comes through anyway. I did not lie, I did not see, I believed the radio. The radio says “copy” when it has heard. It says nothing when it was wrong. So I understand the stewards, this time. I will not say it twice.
Your correspondent salutes a document that accuses and absolves in the same paragraph, like the regional press of old.
The car will start 10th, because another, further up the grid, has a grid penalty. The official timing was not penalised. It has no number.
Nothing further to report.
It’s true, we checked: The Race.
