Nine drivers, including poleman Andy Priaulx, have been hit with penalties following qualifying for the World Touring Car Championship on the streets of Pau – although bizarrely, one of the penalised drivers will move up the grid as a result!
Following on from the decision to exclude Tiago Monteiro after the Marrakech race weekend, the FIA requested technical checks to be made on the maximum engine revs for both diesel and petrol powered cars after qualifying in France, while the maximum supercharged air pressure on the diesel cars was also checked.
Following the checks, nine drivers were found to have exceeded the engine speed limit and either lost all their times, or some of their quickest times.
Amongst the top ten, only Augusto Farfus, Jorg Muller and Franz Engstler have kept their qualifying times, with the remaining seven drivers losing the times they had posted during the second segment of qualifying.
However, rather than losing times from the entire session, the seven drivers to make it through to Q2 have only lost the times from that segment of qualifying and will line-up in the order they had posted after Q1. That leads to the bizarre situation where Chevrolet's Rob Huff goes from fifth on the grid up to fourth once his 'penalty' is applied – with the Briton having posted the quickest time during Q1.
The full list of penalties is as follows, although Stefano D'Aste will start at the back of the grid anyway due to a ten place penalty for an engine change of his Wiechers-Sport BMW
Andy Priaulx BMW Team UK
All times disallowed 1st to 5th
Tom Coronel SUNRED Engineering
All times disallowed 3rd to 6th
Rob Huff Chevrolet
All times disallowed 5th to 4th
Alain Menu Chevrolet
All times disallowed 6th to 8th
Nicola Larini Chevrolet
All times disallowed 7th to 7th
Sergio Hernandez BMW Team Italy-Spain
All times disallowed 8th to 10th
Felix Porteiro Proteam Motorsport
All times disallowed 9th to 9th
Stefano D'Aste Wiechers-Sport
Four fastest times disallowed 12th to 15th
Yvan Muller SEAT Sport
Fastest time disallowed 18th to 21st
