Cornering bumper 1
At the end of today’s Australian Grand Prix all attention is on Ferrari and for Carlos Sainz. However, the Prancing Horse team and the Spanish rider were not – in spite of themselves – the positive protagonists of the race finale. Back from a splendid comeback from 11th to fourth, after a first red flag had completely ruined his strategy, the Madrid-born driver took advantage of the second suspension of the day’s race to aim to snatch a place on the podium. However, the restart from the grid with just two laps to go made the #55 too tempting, who understood wrong in turn 1 and rammed Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.
From fourth to 12th
In evaluating the contact, the race marshals were relentless, sanctioning the Ferrari driver with a five-second penalty and thus causing him to fall, in the final order of arrival, from fourth to 12th. In addition to the person concerned and his team, many fans of the redhead also contested the penalty imposed on Sainz, judging it excessive compared to other similar episodes that occurred in numerous races in recent years in the first lap following a standing start. In the official document released by the FIA to explain the reasons for the penalty, the federation responded in advance to this objection, however, removing any extenuating circumstances from Sainz.
FIA press release
“We have determined that car 55 is fully responsible for the collision – reads the note drawn up by the stewards – car 14 was significantly ahead of car 55 into turn one and yet car 55 hit car 14, causing it to spin and run off the track. As a result we imposed a 5 second penalty on car 55. For the avoidance of doubt – continues the document – we took into account the fact that the collision occurred on the first lap of the restart, when, by convention, Stewards are used to adopting a more lenient view of accidents. However, in this particular case, despite the fact that it was the equivalent of a first lap crash, we felt that car 55 had sufficient space to avoid the collision and didn’t“.
A clear decision, considered unfair by Ferrari and its team principal Frederic Vasseur. In particular, the Italian team complained that, since the episode occurred in the very last phase of the race, it would have been more correct to abstain from inflicting any immediate sanction and listen first to the two protagonists of the episode, thus having a double version of events. According to the French manager, however, by acting in this way, Sainz and the team were not given the opportunity to try to defend themselves, explaining their reasons to the stewards.
#Penalty #Sainz #FIA #tough #extenuating #factor #FormulaPassion