Vergne not happy with FIA: 'Treated like criminals, false accusations'

Formula E driver Jean-Eric Vergne is unhappy about a penalty his team, DS Penske, has received from the FIA. The race body has handed out a penalty to the team for installing a scanning system.

The team had placed a 'Radio Frequency Identification scanner' at the start of the pit lane. All teams have ways of watching what the others are doing, but it is not allowed to place any equipment in the pit lane for this purpose. In the end, the team was (mostly) punished for this.

The FIA initially announced that DS Penske could collect live data from all cars in the field with the RFI. Vergne strongly denies these allegations on his personal Instagram page: "[That] is completely wrong, with that system we merely read the serial number of the tyres used by others," says the Frenchman. Nevertheless, the team accepts the punishment as they should have known that the device should not be used in this way.

'Treated like criminals'

The team received a $25,000 fine from the FIA, the highest fine in the history of the sport. Also, the two drivers hart to start from pitlane in Portland. Speaking to The Race, the former Toro Rosso driver says he thinks it is unfair to be 'treated like criminals' because 'it’s a complete lie to say we had access to live data, it’s completely and utterly false, a false accusation, and it makes us look so bad and it’s damaging the team reputation'