Abril completed second and eleventh throughout the 2 races in Italy final month, making him the highest Mercedes driver within the factors standings in fourth place forward of this weekend’s second spherical on the Lausitzring.
However, the Monegasque has now misplaced all 21 factors he scored through the season opener as a consequence of a gas irregularity, plunging him to the underside of the drivers’ desk.
The DTM introduced late final month that the outcomes of the primary qualifying session at Monza had been nonetheless provisional as a consequence of a “pending procedure”, with an investigation set to observe on the Lausitzring.
Autosport’s sister web site Motorsport-Total.com revealed at the moment that HRT was at the centre of a potential rules breach, with Abril’s AMG-GT3 automotive particularly underneath investigation.
Ahead of this weekend’s two races, the DTM has accomplished its investigation, concluding that the gas pattern collected from Abril’s automotive after the primary qualifying on Saturday didn’t precisely match the specimen from the Shell tanker.
While the DTM detected irregularities in just one gas pattern, it has determined to exclude Abril from your complete Monza race weekend.
“The reason for the exclusion was that a fuel sample taken from the #5 Mercedes-AMG GT3 after qualifying 1 didn’t match the reference sample of the fuel distributed to the teams that had been submitted for the season opener at Monza,” learn a press release from Automobilclub von Deutschland, which is chargeable for the sporting organisation of the DTM.
“That was the end result of an evaluation of the gas pattern at a reference laboratory after the occasion and was an infringement of article 45.5 of the 2021 DTM laws.
“The team has one hour to submit an appeal against the decision by the stewards. In case HRT is using this opportunity, it remains a pending procedure.”
HRT managing director Ulrich Fritz maintained the group’s innocence, suggesting {that a} contaminated gas pipe could have led to the irregularities within the pattern collected from his group’s automotive.
“We can’t explain what happened with our fuel,” he mentioned. “Nobody of our group did something fallacious. That’s not the best way we’re working.
“We stuffed our gas barrels on Thursday as the primary group. Maybe there have been contaminations within the pipes of the gas tank.
“For the complete understanding of the analysis we need the whole report of the analysis.”
The disqualification elevates Abril’s team-mate Maximilian Gotz to second place in race one behind winner Liam Lawson, with 2020 Red Bull Formula 1 driver Alex Albon shifting as much as third and incomes a maiden podium place within the DTM.
It additionally implies that GruppeM Mercedes driver Daniel Juncadella will officially be labeled because the polesitter for the opening race of the Monza weekend.
