F1 Renault team has been presented with a warning by the FIA after the team mixed up the Pirelli 2021 development tyre sets on Daniel Ricciardo's car during FP2 in Portugal.
According to the new regulation, all the teams are required to use the initial 30 minutes of the practise session to test Pirelli's new tyre constructions.
In each team, one driver would be allocated with a single set and will be asked to put the tyres to its limits, while the other driver will get two sets to use one after the other, with one representing the baseline and the other a new construction. However, Renault had a mix up which resulted in Ricciardo using the two sets.
F1 Renault team made a genuine mistake and without any intention, swapped over the front lefts of the two sets, so that Ricciardo did both runs with three tyres from one set, and one from the other.
The FIA's system found out the mistake and a report was sent to the stewards. The rules made it clear that teams are not allowed to mix different types of tyres, However, team Renault admitted that it was their mistake and escaped from disqualification. The team only received a warning as the running involved development tyres from which the team would not gain any advantage.
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The stewards noted: "It was agreed that the team used the incorrect left front tyre from a set of a different specification which is an offence with no apparent sporting benefit to the team as the set in question was a development set."
Pirelli F1 tyre chief and boss Mario Isola acknowledged that it was easy to make a mistake with development tyres, as they are not colour coded.
"Unfortunately it wasn't very useful because they made a mistake," he said. "Knowing what was the specification of Renault, we have to exclude these two sets from our analysis.
"It happens, because the prototypes are black without labels on the side. Obviously with the race tyres, you have different colours, and you recognise immediately if you have three tyres that are white and one tyre that is yellow.
"With the prototypes they have only the number of the set on the sidewall, not the colour, so it was a genuine mistake. It is clear that it is difficult to draw any conclusions from two sets that have been mixed, but it is what it is."
