Aston Martin fail in bid to have Alonso’s Shanghai penalty reviewed · RaceFans

The Chinese Grand Prix stewards have dismissed Aston Martin’s request to review Fernando Alonso’s penalty for colliding with Carlos Sainz Jnr during the sprint race in China two weeks ago.

Aston Martin requested an official review before teams arrived in Miami for this weekend’s round. Representatives of the team and Ferrari were summoned to a video conference on Friday morning in Miami.

Alonso’s team submitted forward-facing footage from his onboard camera which had not been available when the original decision was made. “Aston Martin suggested that the new camera angle showed that the incident in question was a racing incident and not one for which their driver should be penalised,” the stewards noted.

However, although the stewards agreed the footage was both new and relevant, they did not accept it was significant. The stewards said the existing footage they had access to was “would not have caused us to question our decision or otherwise give us a perspective that we did not already have of the incident” and “added nothing material to the visual perspective that we already had.”

As a result the stewards decided the evidence submitted by Aston Martin did not satisfy the criteria to justify holding a review of the decision.

The stewards ruled the same way in a similar case which occured in the 2021 season. Mercedes submitted previously unavailable forward-facing footage from Max Verstappen’s car in a bid to have an incident between him and Lewis Hamilton at the Brazilian Grand Prix reviewed. The stewards also turned down their request.

Alonso was given a 10-second penalty for the collision, which did not affect his finishing position as he retired due to damage from the contact, and three penalty points on his licence, putting him on a total of six.

The collision occured as Alonso and Sainz fought over third place with four laps remaining in the sprint race. Sainz overtook the Aston Martin driver out of turn six and through the sweepers of turns seven and eight.

Alonso attempted to re-pass the Ferrari into the left-hander at turn nine but made contact with Sainz, pushing both of them wide and allowing Sergio Perez, who was behind the pair, to overtake both of them.

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Stewards’ decision in full

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