16/03/2013
NEWS STORY
Mat Coch writes:
It appears that mice - similar to the one pictured - have got in to the Race Control systems in Albert Park and nibbled at some of the wires.
FIA race director Charlie Whiting has therefore sent a note to teams stating that a number of the standard features and alerts usually under race controls finger are not working.
The full statement reads:
"Due to reliability problems with the telemetry link between race control and the cars we will be disabling this with immediate effect. The consequences for the race will be as follows;
1: None of the red, yellow or blue cockpit lights will work.
2: At the start of the race DRS will be automatically enabled once each car as crossed the Line to complete two laps.
3: There will be no automatic blue flag messages on the Official Messaging System. We will do our best to give as much information from race control as we can, however, it will be even more important that teams do what they can to ensure their drivers respect blue flags.
4: If the safety car is deployed Safety Car Model will have to be selected manually by the driver immediately after he sees either the SC light panels or SC boards being held out by marshals.
5: If the safety car is deployed a message saying "DRS DISABLED" will be displayed, we will however be unable to actually disable it. Therefore, from this point, drivers must not use DRS until the message "DRS ENABLED" is shown two laps after the safety car returns to the pits (due to the layout of the track the "DRS ENABLED" message will be sent when every car has reached the end of the second activation zone before turn 3).
6: If yellow flags or lights are displayed in a DRS activation zone "DRS DISABLED" will be displayed, from this point drivers must not use DRS in the yellow zone until the message "DRS ENABLED" appears.
7: In conditions of poor visibility a message saying "DRS DISABLED" may be displayed, we will however be unable to actually disable it. Therefore, from this point, drivers must not use DRS until the message "DRS ENABLED" is shown.
In order to allow your drivers to get a chance to acquaint themselves with some of these features we will be running a further test after P3 in exactly the same way as we did after P1 and P2.
Check out our Saturday gallery, here.