FIA denies Ferrari’s request for new hearing over Sainz’s Australian GP penalty · RaceFans

The FIA has denied Ferrari’s request to reconsider the penalty which cost Carlos Sainz Jnr a points finish in the Australian Grand Prix.

Sainz was given a five-second time penalty for causing a collision with Fernando Alonso during the final standing restart. He crossed the line in fourth place, but as the race finished behind the Safety Car, Sainz fell to 12th place in the final classification.

Ferrari hoped to overturn his penalty using the FIA’s Right to Review process. However the stewards ruled Ferrari failed to produce new, significant and relevant evidence which gave reason to review their decision.

“There is no significant and relevant new element which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned,” the stewards ruled after inspecting Ferrari’s submission. “The petition is therefore dismissed.”

The evidence submitted by Ferrari included data from Sainz’s car plus statements from the driver, Alonso and some of their rivals. The stewards noted Ferrari cited a precedent involving Force India as grounds for these submissions being considered sufficient grounds for a review.

This is believed to concern a grid penalty then-Force India driver Sergio Perez was given when he collided with Felipe Massa during the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix. Force India prompted the stewards to review the incident after submitting Perez’s account as evidence.

However the Australian Grand Prix stewards noted that precedent did not apply in this case. “The Sahara Force India F1 team matter involved a post-race hearing into an incident (in other words, it was not clear to the stewards who was at fault for the collision in question).

“The competitor’s driver was not available to attend the hearing because he had been taken to hospital following the incident. The hearing proceeded without the ability for the competitor to speak with its driver to obtain a version. That happened after the hearing and the driver’s version put a different light on the facts that had been put to the stewards.”

However in Sainz’s case the stewards “deemed it unnecessary” to hear from him before determining who was to blame. They therefore deemed the quotes from the driver and others supplied by Ferrari also did not constitute significant and relevant new information.

The stewards also ruled the telemetry data Ferrari submitted did not…