Fans at the Lausitzring had to wait a long time, but more than four hours after the end of Saturday’s DTM race at the Lausitzring, McLaren driver Ben Dorr was retroactively declared the winner. The McLaren youngster takes his first DTM triumph because the provisional winner Marco Mapelli received a 15-second penalty for speeding under Full Course Yellow.
The Italian Abt Lamborghini driver drops to second place because Ricardo Feller, who had celebrated third place in the Manthey Porsche after the race, received a 15-second penalty for the same reason. The Swiss driver remains third, as Aston Martin driver Nicki Thiim was 20.703 seconds behind Feller at the checkered flag.
In addition, two other drivers received 15-second penalties for excessive speed during FCY: Local hero Maximilian Paul loses his strong sixth place and is demoted to 14th, while the penalty for Maro Engel, who finished a disappointed 15th, results in no loss of position.
Why did the decission take so long?
But how did the penalties come about and why did the decision take so long? During the race, the stewards already launched an investigation against Mapelli, Feller, Paul, Jules Gounon, Tom Kalender, and Engel for exceeding the speed limit of 80 km/h during FCY based on suspicious GPS data.
To avoid incorrect decisions like recently in Formula 1 at the Monaco Grand Prix regarding the pit lane speed limit, vehicle data was read out and cross-referenced with the GPS data. Furthermore, the teams were heard on the matter.
The investigation revealed that not all drivers actually committed a rule violation. In the cases of Kalender and Gounon, the stewards decided on “No Further Action”, while Paul and Engel, alongside the drivers on the podium, received 15-second penalties.
Why the stewards had no choice
But how can this be explained? All drivers against whom an investigation was launched were at least briefly above the permitted 80 km/h, but there are tolerances in the DTM. This is related to the fact that – depending on the vehicle’s position on the track – there can be a minimal delay in data transmission until the signal reaches the cockpit.
Furthermore, even under FCY, drivers are sometimes slower than 80 km/h in the corners, which means that during acceleration, a driver can briefly exceed the maximum permitted speed. The penalized drivers stayed above the allowed 80 km/h for too long.
According to information from Motorsport-Total.com, there were different reasons for the violations. “He had a short peak in there and that was it,” explains an Abt spokesperson. The Lamborghini team did not want to clarify whether it was a technical reason or a driver error.
Abt and Manthey: What led to the excessive speed?
Why did the mishap happen at Manthey? “We were too late entering the FCY phase and were therefore still too fast,” says a Manthey spokesperson.
Immediately after the race, Mapelli and Feller were not aware that something might not have been right during the neutralization of the race, which was caused by the technical defect in Timo Glock’s McLaren.
“No, I don’t know. I heard it’s a yellow flag sector too quick or something like this. So not sure,” said Mapelli. And Feller was also surprised: “I also can’t tell, to be honest. I thought that was very safe, but I couldn’t even tell which area it was. So we just have to see what the investigation says.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
