No change to Australian GP result as stewards reject Haas protest · RaceFans

The result of the Australian Grand Prix has been upheld after the stewards dismissed a protest by the Haas team.

Haas claimed the race director failed to re-establish the correct running order as required by the rules when arranging the restart which took place on the final lap.

The race was red-flagged after a multi-car crash on lap 56 following the second standing restart of the day. The cars returned to the pit lane where the race director ordered the field to be reorganised into the same order they were in before the second standing restart took place.

Haas claimed this violated article 57.3 of the Sporting Regulations which states “the order will be taken at the last point at which it was possible to determine the position of all cars.” The team argued the race director could have used Safety Car line two, which is located at the pit exit before turn one where the crash took place, to determine the running order, by using GPS and timing data.

However the stewards ruled that as the race director had to make a prompt decision on how to organise the field before the restart, this wasn’t feasible.

“Based on what we heard from the FIA representatives and from Haas, we considered that this was in fact done appropriately by the race director in this instance and therefore dismiss the protest,” they concluded.

Stewards’ ruling on Haas protest

Admissibility of the protest

1. The protest lodged by MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (“Haas”) that was received was against: “the provisional classification of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, received today at 18:05” [emphasis added]
2. Under Article 13 of the International Sporting Code (ISC), the scenarios in which a protest can be lodged by a Competitor are set out. It includes a protest against a classification.
3. In the circumstances, the protest, on its face appears to be compliant with the ISC.
4. We consider now the substance of the Protest, which appears to be about the way in which the order of the grid was set up for the restart of the Race after a Red Flag event in lap 57/58 rather than the classification itself.

Substantive Grounds

5. The Protest was founded on the following grounds:
a. “Breach of sporting regulation article 57.3;
b. It was possible for the position of all the cars to be determined at the SC2 line not the previous starting grid.”
6. Art 57.3 of the F1 Sporting Regulation states:
“In all cases the order will be taken at the last point at which it was possible to determine the position of…