The FIA stewards have dismissed the appeal by Ferrari about the penalty that driver Carlos Sainz received at the Australian Grand Prix.
At the second restart of the Australian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz collided with Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, although both drivers were able to continue in the race.
The stewards deemed that there was no signification or new elements deemed relevant, while Ferrari argued that the telemetry from Sainz’s car along with a statement from Sainz and the post-race comments were ‘significant and relevant’ which was dismissed.
The stewards said that telemetry was available to them and that Sainz’s blame of the sun directly in his eyes and the low grip of the cold tyres at the restart was “not a justifiable reason to avoid a penalty for a collision”.
Post-race comments were dismissed as the stewards made an in-race decision and would have delayed the decision if they felt a statement from the driver’s involved would have helped.
A five-second penalty was handed to Sainz as the race was almost at its conclusion and therefore was added to his overall time after the chequered flag, which normally would be routine.
However, in this case, the field was bunched together as they were behind the safety car and therefore the end result was far more detrimental to Sainz’s race than it would have been under green flag conditions.
Sainz crossed the line in fourth place but dropped out of the points to 12th place after the five-second time penalty was applied to his time.
At the time, Sainz was furious that there wasn’t allowed to go to the race stewards to protest his case, although Ferrari petitioned for a right to review, which has now been dismissed by the stewards.
In order for an appeal to lead to a review, Ferrari needed to present information that was not available at the time of the incident to race stewards.
The meeting between Sainz, Ferrari and the stewards lasted two and a half hours according to F1 journalist Giuliano Duchessa, with the final decision not favouring the Spanish driver.