Will Ferrari succeed in getting Sainz’s penalty overturned?

Sainz was relegated from fourth to 12th and outside of the points in Melbourne after he was handed a five-second time penalty for colliding with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso at the final standing restart. 

The Spaniard was left furious at the FIA and called the decision the “most unfair penalty” and the “biggest disgrace I’ve seen in the sport”, while his Ferrari team were left frustrated that other restart incidents went unpunished.  

Even Alonso, who was pitched into a spin by Sainz, felt the penalty was “too harsh”. 

A virtual hearing will be held on Tuesday morning (April 18) to decide whether the case should be reinvestigated after Ferrari formally submitted a ‘right of review’ petition. 

The hearing will first assess whether there is “a significant and relevant new element” of evidence that was not previously considered by the stewards in Melbourne.

Ferrari will present their case and if deemed successful, another hearing will take place. 

There, a decision will be taken to either uphold the penalty, change it, or overturn it altogether. 

History not on Ferrari’s side 

‘Right of review’ cases are rarely successful.

That is something Ferrari experienced first hand when they appealed Sebastian Vettel’s five-second time penalty at the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix. 

Vettel appeared on course to win the race until he made a mistake under pressure from Lewis Hamilton and ran wide at Turn 3. The German cut across the grass and blocked the Mercedes driver to retain his position. 

Vettel crossed the line in first ahead of Hamilton but was slapped with a penalty for rejoining the track in a dangerous manner, ultimately handing Hamilton the win. 

Ferrari tried to get the penalty overturned but failed after the stewards threw out their request for a review, ruling they had not met the criteria of providing significant new evidence. 

It later emerged that Ferrari showed the stewards Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok’s post-race analysis on the SkyPad as part of their body of evidence. 

The stewards considered this to be a ‘personal opinion by a third party’ and determined that five other pieces of evidence were available at the time of the original call. 

Ferrari will have to overcome that precedent if they are to gain their desired outcome this time around. 

There have been plenty of other examples where teams have failed with their right of review bids. 

Williams failed to overturn Sergey Sirotkin’s grid penalty at the 2018 Spanish Grand Prix, while four right of review requests were rejected in 2021, with Mercedes, Red Bull, Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo all seeing respective appeals fall flat. 

Do Ferrari have any hope?

Successful cases are few and far between. A Red Bull appeal resulted in a late grid penalty for Hamilton at the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix after the team submitted new on-board footage from the 360 degree camera attached to Hamilton’s Mercedes. 

Haas also won a right of review case at last year’s United States Grand Prix, however this was later overturned following an Alpine appeal. 

The most recent example of a successful appeal came at the second round of the season in Saudi Arabia, where Aston Martin managed to get Alonso reinstated to the podium after his post-race penalty was reversed.

Recent history suggests that Ferrari’s chances of success are rather slim.