FIA Unaccepted Ferrari Appeal Against Sainz Penalty at Australian GP

Pembalap Ferrari, Carlos Sainz
Sumber :
  • AP Photo/Frank Augstein

VIVA – The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) has an unaccepted appeal against the penalty given to Carlos Sainz at the Australian Grand Prix on late April 2. 

"There are no significant and relevant new elements that were unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned. The Petition is therefore dismissed." said the FIA, quoted from the official F1 website, on Wednesday.

Sainz was hit with a five-second time penalty for clashing with Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) during the last restart of the race, dropping Sainz from fourth to 12th and out of the points. 

Having already expressed his anger over the radio, Sainz cut a frustrated figure when he spoke to the media post-race, saying he was “too angry to talk” after receiving “the most unfair penalty I’ve seen in my life”.

Pembalap Ferrari, Carlos Sainz

Photo :
  • Twitter/@Carlossainz55

In the week after the race, Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur confirmed that the Italian outfit had petitioned for a right of review, with the hope of getting the penalty overturned.

The FIA reasoned: "We considered the fact that this collision took place at the first corner on the first lap of the restart, when, by convention, the Stewards would typically take a more lenient view of the incident,"

"However, we decided that notwithstanding that it was the equivalent of a first lap incident, we considered that there was a sufficient gap for SAI to take steps to avoid the collision and failed to do so. We, therefore, imposed a 5-second time penalty." FIA added. 

Ferrari had asked the stewards to reconsider their verdict by taking into account telemetry data from Sainz's car, plus witness statements given by Sainz and Alonso. 

Furthermore, the FIA was asked to reconsider on the basis that, in another case, former team Force India previously used a driver's witness testimony to "put a different light on the facts that had been put to the Stewards".