Zengõ Motorsport first team to be fined for breaching staff limit rules

The Hungarian Zengõ Motorsport team, entered this weekend as a wild card entry with a Cupra TCR for Tamas Tenke, have become the first team to be fined by the FIA for falling foul of the new staff member limit sporting regulations, while both BRC Racing Team and Cyan Racing were cleared of staff infringements following separate investigations.

The Zengõ team’s “performance engineer” had been wearing guest credentials and was on the “non-operational staff” list which had been submitted by the team to the officials, despite working in the garage on Friday.

The team have since submitted a corrected list of engineers, but have been fined 300 EUR for the original mistake.

Showing that the FIA are keeping a close eye on engineers this weekend, both the Hyundai-equipped BRC Racing Team and Lynk & Co Cyan Racing teams have also been investigated for incidents.

One of BRC Racing Team’s engineers was believed to have not been wearing his assigned armband which marks him as one of the ten team members able to work on the car, but the team have confirmed he was wearing the armband while he was challenged while refuelling the car, and a separate photo of him not wearing the armband was not relevant as he wasn’t working on the car at the time.

One of Cyan Racing’s engineers, working on Yann Ehrlacher’s car, was also challenged, but it was later confirmed he was wearing the armband and on the team’s operational list, and no penalty was handed out.