The Formula 1 racing director Michael Masi explained that a data server crash was responsible for the DRS issue during the first part of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The server is used for the DRS that starts on lap 3. Normally that works just fine, however, this time race control had to notify everybody that they were no able to enable DRS due to a technical issue. The DRS was activated on lap 19 and was working fine for the remainder of the race.
“The simple part is a data server crashed,” said Michael Masi. “The timing still operated fine as we all saw but that crashed and we immediately disabled it and until we were 100 percent confident that it was all, not only back up and running but back up and running with the correct data available, that was when we re-enabled it.”
“We ran various checks collaboratively between the FIA and F1 group to make sure everything was working hunky-dory. Until that point in time we were not going to take a chance until we were confident.”
Michael Masi refuses to blame a single party for the fault. All the systems work together so he is not going to say if it was an FIA or FOM system. However, he says that they will look into the issue with all parties together.
When asked if there isn’t a back-up system Michael Massi answered: “It is the first time that it has happened. Before anyone asks, yes there is a backup but the first part is to actually identify what the first issue was and as we all know with any backup system there is a lag in things clicking over.”