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Met betrekking tot onze disqualificatie in Spa stuurden wij ter onzer verdediging volgende brief naar de FIA:
Date: 3rd August 2005
To: Federation Internationale de l’Automobile
Attn: Mr. Eduardo Freitas
Subject: GLPK disqualification from Spa 24 Hours
Dear Mr. Freitas,
We feel very disappointed by the disqualification of our car from the Spa 24 Hours last weekend. The decision to take us out of the final results seems to be a very severe one.
We duly admit that we have made a mistake. On Saturday morning after the warm-up we changed the battery in the car on which the FIA logger is mounted, so it got unplugged. After this was changed it was simply forgotten to put the connector back on the logger. I’m absolutely sure that you and the stewards of the meeting understood that there was no ‘cheating’ involved with this.
We decided not to file an appeal against this decision, but we would like to point out some issues in our defense.
1. Article 60.7 (parc ferme) and Article 61.2 point out that an official representative of the team is to be present when checks are being made. This was not the case. When I arrived in parc ferme I found the car with the masterswitch activated and the battery box removed (to acces the data logger). Mr. Vinatier confirmed me that the Mahtech engineer present already attempted to download data from the data logger.
2. We presented to the stewards of the meeting the possibility to make available all data logged by our own system. In this way the same data was available and we feel we comply with the ‘spirit’ of the regulations.
3. This system basically serves to check airboxpressure during driving and to have a performance comparison between the different cars. We passed the airbox stall test (for the 30th time this season). So our own data could well be used to serve as a comparison against the Maserati’s, Aston Martins and Ferrari’s. And even if this data was not available, how can the error we made be severe enough to disqualify us from a 24 hour race in our own country?
4. Article 61.1 points out that cars eligible to take part in the GT1 category MUST be equiped with this device. In Spa there were SEVERAL GT1 cars which did not carry the data logger. In the regulations it says nowhere that one-time entrants do not need to install the logger and I could not find back any FIA bulletins that some cars were exempted from this rule. Why were no measures taken against this?
5. I understood from the explanations from the stewards that the fact that we got an official warning in Monza played a role in the decision on Sunday. I remind you that at that time we didn’t have a data logger in the car, simply because the company that the FIA appoints to deliver these systems to the teams was not able to provide us with a system in time.
From the beginning of the season we have been checked extensively by the scrutineers. We have always been as cooperative as possible as it serves us no good that people seem to think we are cheating. Now we have been disqualified because of an issue which has nothing to do with cheating. This happened in the most important race of the season and in our own country. You can imagine the critisism we had to take in the press the last couple of days.
This will probably have an effect with our financial partners as we are discussing projects for 2006. On top of that our hopes to challenge for this year’s championship title have been destroyed by now.
We feel very bad about this situation and we have no idea how to undo the damage. For me personally GLPK Carsport finished 4th in this year’s 24 Hours of Spa. The technical crew and the drivers did a magnificent job, in any case put some excitement in the later stages of the race. I’m sure we will start the rest of the season with at least as much dedication to win races. I just hope that we can change the thinking of those people in the FIA and the other teams who believe that we are achieving our performance in a dishonnest way.
I remain open for any feedback you might have.
Sincerely Yours,
Jorge Segers
Teammanager GLPK-Carsport
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