The telemetry link between the cars and race control, which has been causing problems since the opening race in Australia, will be resolved for the Spanish Grand Prix according to BRDC president and occasional race steward Derek Warwick.
The FIA switched supplier for the 2013 season from EM to Riedel, which caused problems with race control’s GPS data, trackside warning lights, cockpit warning lights and their control over DRS.
At the opening three races, the telemetry link was disabled completely, leaving the drivers without vital information. However some problems were resolved for the Bahrain GP, but not the driver warning system inside the cockpit.
Warwick says this will be fixed with an upgrade and revealed that the stewards were asked to go easy on drivers who broke the rules which were directly linked to the telemetry issue – such as using DRS under yellows, as was the case in China for several drivers.
“We’ve been told they’ve got an upgrade which is going to Barcelona and then it’ll be working from there,” he told Reuters.
“You can’t blame a driver if we’ve messed up in terms of the support package,” he added. “The FIA has asked us [race stewards] to be lighter on fines for the drivers, but we still have the same tools available to us for other punishments.”
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