DG Sport explain administration error the cause of Mat’o Homola’s exclusion
The Opel team DG Sport Compétition have quickly explained it was more paperwork than performance enhancing parts that were the cause of Mat’o Homola’s exclusion from qualifying yesterday, with a radiator mounting bracket’s absence from the homologation form the cause of the penalty.
Homola’s car was investigated post-qualifying and was the picked up by the TCR technical team for two issues, first an error with the gearbox and the second, an issue with the subframe around the engine.
The gearbox issue was soon resolved as it was discovered a “copy and paste” error on the homologation form meant the gear teeth figures were correct, and it was the ratio on the form that was in error and not the responsibility of the team.
The technical report stated:
“We found an error on the homologation paper of car 70 which obliged us to dismount the gear box. The number of teeth were correct but the calculation was not correct; this is for sure only a mistake on typing.”
The main problem which caused the car to be excluded was around the radiator mounting on the subframe, which was not present on the homologation form of the Kissling-built Opel, with the technical report confirming: “we found that the subframe was not in conformity compared to the homologation form.”
The issue was more of a clerical error by the car’s builders, and is effectively present on all Opel Astra TCRs in competition.
“I explained I cannot run either car tomorrow, as we can’t fit the radiator without this,” explained DG Sport’s technical director Lionel Hansen to TouringCarTimes. “And within one hour we found a solution, and the form has been changed.
“Many people have assumed we’ve modified something to make it faster, especially with the turbo story from last week, but I’ve made it clear and the technical stewards have confirmed it’s not our (team’s) fault.”
The TCR technical team have updated the homologation form, with the cars of Homola and Grégoire Demoustier still running with the same subframes as yesterday, but now with the paperwork in order.
The element of the subframe which is not present on the homologation form is below:
