Carlos Sainz: Ferrari have Australian GP penalty appeal rejected

PARIS (Agencies): Ferrari’s attempt to overturn Carlos Sainz’s penalty at the Australian Grand Prix has been rejected.

The race stewards reconvened on Tuesday to hear Ferrari’s petition for a right of review of the penalty, which dropped Sainz from fourth place to 12th. They decided that “no significant and relevant new element” had been presented by Ferrari, so dismissed the petition.

Stewards said their view that Sainz was wholly to blame had not changed. Sainz was given a five-second penalty for colliding with Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin. It dropped him further than it would normally have done because the field was compressed after a series of race stoppages.

Ferrari claimed to have three new pieces of information that had not been considered by the stewards when they imposed the penalty, which was done while the race was still officially running.

These were the telemetry data from Sainz’s car, the driver’s own witness statement and other drivers’ statements, taken from post-race interviews.

One of these was with Alonso, who said he viewed the penalty as “harsh”. Ferrari also cited an incident that happened at the Canadian Grand Prix in 2014 after which the Force India team was allowed a review because their driver Sergio Perez had not been spoken to by stewards before a decision had been made.

Stewards rejected that argument, saying the incident in question was “quite different”, as the stewards at the time had been undecided on whether Perez or Williams’ Felipe Massa was to blame and the drivers involved had been taken to hospital.

Perez was given a five-place grid penalty for the following race, which was upheld after Force India’s request for a review. On Ferrari’s other arguments, they said they had already viewed the extensive telemetry to which the FIA had access before making their decision and that they did not feel the need to speak to Sainz to decide he was wholly to blame for the incident.

“Had we thought that this required a statement from Sainz for us to analyse the event, we would have summoned him after the race,” the verdict said.
“We did not consider it necessary then to hear from him to decide that fact.
“His witness statement, in essence, states how poor the grip was and how the sun was in his eyes.

“But logic would dictate that the position of the sun would have equally impacted other drivers too. It is not a justifiable reason to avoid a penalty for a collision.” They added that the other drivers’ comments were “not significant or relevant”.

A Ferrari statement said: “We are naturally disappointed, and felt that we had provided sufficient significant new elements for the FIA to re-examine the decision, especially in the context of the particular conditions and multiple incidents that occurred during the final restart.”

The decision leaves Sainz fifth in the drivers’ championship, 18 points behind Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, and Ferrari fourth in the constructors’ championship, 30 behind Mercedes.