The FIA has admitted it “got it wrong” in missing Nico Hulkenberg’s track limits infringement early enough in qualifying for Formula 1’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
Hulkenberg had run off the circuit at Turn 11 during his fastest lap in Q1, but this was not spotted by the FIA at the time.
That meant the Sauber driver was allowed to proceed to Q2, having knocked Williams’ Alex Albon out behind him.
However, following a complaint from Aston Martin, and a subsequent more detailed look at his lap, the FIA later stripped Hulkenberg of his best Q1 time.
By the time that decision was made though, it was too late for Albon to take his rightful place in Q2 – which robbed him of the opportunity to move further up the grid.
This angered Williams, who was left demanding answers from the FIA about exactly what had happened, even though Albon was eventually promoted to 15th, one spot ahead of Hulkenberg.
Williams boss James Vowles had told Sky: “It's not one position gained, it could be many positions gained. What I'd like to understand now is why this happened; [but] it's not going to rectify the positions, the position is where it is on the grid."
Hot spot problem
Late on Saturday night, the FIA put its hand up and admitted that it had made a mistake in its policing of track limits in Bahrain – as it had not put enough monitoring in place for potential track limits infringements at Turn 11.
“There are a number of track limit hot spots which are monitored continuously live,” it explained. “Track limit hot spots are given precedence.
“Based on previous sessions, Turn 11 was not deemed to be an area of focus for track limits. In hindsight, it should have been higher on our priority list as a corner.”
Without Turn 11 being one of its hot spot areas that have special cameras in place, that meant the checks to see if Hulkenberg had run wide took a bit longer than normal – which opened the door for the error in letting the German take part in Q2.
The FIA added: “Unfortunately, in this case due to the timing of the check it was not possible to act before the start of Q2. As soon as we became aware of the incident, we acted on it.
“We are building towards increased resources and improved systems and processes. On this occasion, we got it wrong.”
