Hungarian GP: Ferrari fined for DRS Misuse

Ferrari has been fined 15,000 Euros by the stewards at the Hungarian Grand Prix after Fernando Alonso used DRS illegally on three occasions . The FIA’s technical delegate Jo Bauer had referred this matter to the stewards after finding out that Alonso had enabled his DRS when he wasn’t within one second of the car in front.

The FIA has blamed the Ferrari team rather than Alonso as they failed to change the DRS settings on his car after qualifying. This meant that whenever Alonso was in the DRS zone, his steering wheel displayed the message ‘DRS Enabled’. This in turn resulted in Alonso gaining a small advantage over his rivals.

A statement from the stewards read, ” The DRS enabling system was not changed by the team from the pre-race to the race setting, The driver therefore incorrectly received ‘DRS enabled’ messages and reacted to them on three occasions. As soon as the team became aware of the problem they informed the driver to only use DRS when told to do so by the team. Whilst a small sporting advantage (less than one second over the entire race) was gained, the team argued #3 also suffered a disadvantage by being unable to use DRS on every legitimate occasion. However, the team is ultimately responsible for ensuring the system conforms to the regulations.”

Fernando Alonso finished in 5th place in Hungary.