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LinkedInDempsey-Proton WEC team loses season’s points after data logger infraction
Dempsey-Proton Racing, which was leading the GTE-Am championship in the 2018 – 19 FIA World Endurance Championship, has lost all its points from the superseason following a data logger infraction discovered at the Six Hours of Fuji.
Both of the team’s Porsche 911 RSRs have been stripped of their points after the outfit was found to be using a data logger that was “transferring false information”. The breach was found when both the team’s cars were penalised for not completing the minimum refuelling time. This infraction was, according to stewards, compounded by the team’s “failure to co-operate in an investigation” into the matter, which contributed to its punishment.
The FIA issued its findings ahead of the Six Hours of Shanghai, which revealed that a line of code was modified in the cars’ data loggers that artificially added two seconds to the actual refuelling times. Moreover, it was determined that the fraudulent system had also been in place at the Six Hours of Silverstone in August.
When summoned to a hearing, senior team members did not contest the allegations, and said that the extra code had been added by an “external consultant” which the team previously worked with. Neither the identity of the consultant, “nor the conditions in which he was allegedly dismissed,” were revealed by the team members, which also offered no proof for their claims.
This led to the stewards stripping the #77 and #88 entries of all the points they had accumulated in the season up until that point. This removed the #77 car from the top of the GTE-Am leaderboard, which it had reached after class wins at Le Mans and Silverstone.
