Alfa Romeo breaches parc ferme and curfew, earning Guanyu Zhou a start from pit lane – Chinese surprised by collision with Gasly
Guanyu Zhou will have to tackle the Imola Formula One racefrom the pit lane. The Chinese driver had crashed and damaged his car after a collision with Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) in Saturday’s sprint. During the extensive repair work, Alfa Romeo not only violated the curfew but also the parc ferme conditions.
“During the repair of car 24 following the sprint session, car 24 was found to be in breach of Article 40.6 of the Sporting Regulations as the car used during the sprint session was not covered and prepared for FIA sealing within two hours of the sprint session,” read the Race Commissaires’ notice.
“In addition, a violation of Article 40.9 was found as the competitor had continued to work on the car in parc ferme conditions without supervision,” the commissioners added.
Alfa Romeo would have admitted to making changes to the car. But because the work was carried out under a lack of supervision, the commissioners could have concluded in any case that modifications had been made to the car, even though the parc ferme conditions applied.
Guanyu Zhou has to start from the pit lane after his accident in the F1 sprint. ImolaGP pic.twitter.com/9o1pYHiF79
– Norman Fischer (@NormanMST) April 24, 2022
“The penalty for breaching the parc ferme conditions is set out in Article 40.9 b), which requires the driver to start from the pit lane. We have therefore imposed the penalty set out in Article 40.9 b).”
It doesn’t make much difference to Zhou, however, as he would have started 20th and last anyway after his accident.
The Chinese driver blames Gasly for the collision, while the commissioners had not even launched an investigation. “It was a pretty good battle with two or three cars on the first lap, then at turn 9 I saw one of the Mercedes defending against Pierre and then I had the opportunity to outbrake him,” Zhou tells
In his opinion, the manoeuvre on braking was done. “The next thing was a massive contact on exit, which was surprising because I felt the manoeuvre was already done. We have to look at what happened,” said the Alfa Romeo driver.
“It’s quite disappointing that the race ended like that because I think as a team we had good potential this weekend. “
