FIA to rethink their penalty for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr.

Whereas the Components One world appears forward to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on the finish of April, it appears we’re nonetheless not but accomplished with the Australian Grand Prix.

Regardless of that race ending over two weeks in the past, there may be nonetheless an out of doors probability that the outcomes might change. FIA has agreed to listen to an enchantment from Ferrari relating to the five-second penalty handed right down to driver Carlos Sainz Jr. following a collision with Fernando Alonso after a late restart.

That penalty dropped Sainz from fourth place to a end exterior the factors.

FIA introduced on Thursday that they have been granting Ferrari’s “Proper of Evaluation,” and that they’d be holding a listening to on April 18th to revisit the top of the race.

The incident in query occurred following a pink flag within the late phases of the Australian Grand Prix. Stewards stopped the race after Kevin Magnussen struck the wall, and particles flooded the observe. On the standing restart chaos ensued, with Sainz coming into contact with Alonso, after which each Alpine drivers — Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly — knocking one another out of the race.

The race was stopped once more, and that’s when Sainz discovered of the penalty. It was a bitter capsule for the Ferrari driver to swallow:

Within the days following the Grand Prix, Ferrari Crew Principal Frédéric Vasseur remained important of the choice and pointed to some inconsistencies with how race officers dealt with comparable conditions. Following the collision between Gasly and Ocon on the finish of the race, stewards met with each drivers to contemplate any penalty.

Nonetheless, race officers termed the collision between the 2 to be a “first lap incident” and declined handy down any penalties.

Vasseur is questioning why Sainz by no means had the possibility to talk with officers — which is what the driving force is arguing for within the above clip — and why his collision with Alonso was not additionally termed a “first lap incident.” Talking final week in regards to the finish of the Australian Grand Prix, Vasseur had this to say:

“Carlos was devastated on Sunday and I can completely perceive typically after the race with the stress, the emotion and so, there are extremes when it comes to response,” Vasseur mentioned. “However I believe he was devastated on Sunday and we did a petition for the overview of the case, we’ll ship it to the FIA.

“As we’re discussing I don’t need to disclose any particulars. The one factor about Gasly, (Esteban) Ocon, and we additionally noticed Sargeant, Nyck De Vries, Flip 1, the response of the stewards was not the identical.

“The method is that first they’ll take a look on our petition to see if they will re-open the case, then we could have a second listening to a bit later, with the identical stewards, on the subsequent assembly in regards to the determination itself. We will count on at the very least to have an open dialogue with them for the nice of the game to keep away from to have this sort of determination the place you’ve got three instances on the identical nook however not the identical determination.

“The most important frustration from Carlos — you heard it on the radio — was to not have the hearings as a result of the case was very particular. On this case it could have made sense because the race was over, it was not affecting the rostrum, to have hearings as Gasly and Ocon had.”

Given how the collision between the Alpine drivers was dealt with, it seems Ferrari has a really robust argument to convey to the desk Tuesday.