Ferrari lose appeal against Carlos Sainz’s five-second penalty at Australian GP

Ferrari’s petition for a right of review into Carlos Sainz’s penalty at the Australian Grand Prix has been dismissed by the FIA.

The Spaniard dropped from fourth to 12th in Melbourne after being hit with a five-second time penalty for causing a collision.

With the race restarting on the penultimate lap of the grand prix, Sainz clipped the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, who was running third at the time.

He had five seconds added to his race time as a result and was relegated out of the points, leaving Ferrari unhappy with the stewards’ decision and launching an appeal.

“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 incidents.

“However, we decided that notwithstanding that it was the equivalent of a first-lap incident, we considered that there was sufficient gap for SAI (Sainz) to take steps to avoid the collision and failed to do so. We therefore imposed a five-second time penalty.”

Ferrari issued their own statement following the rejection of their petition, accepting the decision while stressing they would seek further talks aimed at “improving the policing” in Formula One.

“We acknowledge the FIA decision not to grant us a right of review in relation to the penalty imposed on Carlos Sainz at the 2023 Australian Grand Prix,” it read.

“We are naturally disappointed, and felt that we had provided sufficient significant new elements for the FIA to re-examine the decision, especially in the context of the particular conditions and multiple incidents that occurred during the final restart.

“We are, however, respectful of the process and of the FIA decision. We are now looking forward to entering broader discussions with the FIA, F1 and all the teams, with the aim of further improving the policing of our sport, in order to ensure the highest level of fairness and consistency that our sport deserves.”

Sainz had taken points at the opening two rounds of the 2023 F1 season and will be aiming to get back in the top 10 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on April 30.