Monday May 27th, 2002
Pat Symonds, Renault's executive director of engineering, is confident Jarno Trulli will keep his fourth place at Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix.
The Italian driver's R202 car failed to pass the post-race inspection and Formula One's ruling body, the FIA, took an electronic box from Trulli's car to verify that it complied with Article 8.2 of the Technical Regulations, which states the following:
Any system, the purpose and/or effect of which is to detect when a race start signal is given, is not permitted.
Whichever driver input device is used to initiate the propulsion of the car during the start of a race, a verifiable signal must be provided which indicates its instant of operation.
The FIA is expected to give their verdict on Tuesday, and Symonds is confident the result will stand.
"We are quite confident that everything will be clarified when we test the box on Tuesday at the factory," said Symonds. "It's a pity this couldn't be done right away at the circuit on Sunday night, and that we have to wait for Tuesday to clear things up."
The team said that the compliance inspection would take place at their factory in Oxfordshire.
The top three positions - winner David Coulthard for McLaren, Michael Schumacher for Ferrari and Ralf Schumacher for Williams - were confirmed as official after the Monaco Grand Prix.
But if Trulli were to be excluded, that would move Italian Giancarlo Fisichella up to fourth place for Jordan, Heinz-Harald Frentzen to fifth for Arrows and Brazilian Rubens Barrichello into sixth for Ferrari.
The extra point would also allow Arrows to move ahead of Minardi and Toyota as the eighth-placed team.
Published at 16:01:33 GMT