Penalties issued for Assen boost use

Team Australia teammates Power and Simon Pagenaud, along with Dan Clarke (Minardi Team USA), Neel Jani (PKV Racing) and Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing) will only be allowed 35 seconds of Power to Pass, as opposed to the 60 seconds of their rivals, when they start this Sunday's 16th Champ Car race in Australia.

The punishment is a result of an edict issued mid-race at Assen by Race Control, when a glitch in the Cosworth-developed system caused some drivers - including reigning champion Sebastien Bourdais - to trigger the pitlane speedlimiter instead of the 50bhp overboost.

In order not to penalise those with the malfunctioning equipment, Champ Car's Race Director Tony Cotman ordered all teams to inform their drivers that the system was not to be used for the remainder of the race. Seven drivers failed to comply, but two of those - Ryan Dalziel and Tristan Gommendy - have been replaced in the intervening six weeks by Mario Dominguez and Oriol Servia respectively.

Neither Dominguez nor Servia will incur the penalty of their forebears.

For hometown Team Australia's driver pairing - both possible pole-sitters and race-winners this weekend - this could be a major blow given the lengths of the straights on Surfers Paradise's 4.47-km course.

However, Team Australia co-owner Derrick Walker was due to meet Cotman today to see if he can at least reduce Power's punishment, which he described as "like getting a life sentence for stealing an orange."

Said Walker: "Simon is guilty as charged, I'm afraid, but I need to argue Will's case. The reason is that at Assen there were only a couple of places around the track where a team had a strong enough radio signal to communicate with the driver.

"As a result it was pretty hard to get the message through and verify that it had been received. Bear in mind, we're often telling drivers not to use Power to Pass if they're using it too quickly or getting through too much fuel by using it. Here we had to explain to our drivers that it was a different scenario - they weren't permitted to use it at all.

"Now in the two laps it took for us to get this message to Will, he had used just two seconds of it and had gained no advantage - no change of places, no super-hot in-lap. So I don't believe he should get the same punishment as the rest of them.

"In these circumstances then, I'm not sure we should be punished for a supplier - Cosworth - screwing up."

Pagenaud admitted he is worried about the consequences a reduced overboost allocation will have on his race. The Frenchman said: "It's a great shame that it happened just before our team's home event.

"I suppose Tony had to penalise us, but at a course with long straights, it could hurt us badly. I think I'll just have to conserve what I've got until near the end of the race."