Aston Martin to appeal Fernando Alonso’s China penalty for Carlos Sainz incident

Aston Martin have requested a right of review for Fernando Alonso’s penalty in the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Alonso was handed a 10-second time penalty and three penalty points for an incident with Carlos Sainz in the Saturday sprint race.

The penalty was inconsequential to Alonso’s final finishing position as the aforementioned contact with Sainz resulted in a puncture for the Aston Martin driver.

At the time, the stewards noted: “The stewards heard from the driver of car 14 (Fernando Alonso), the driver of car 55 (Carlos Sainz), team representatives and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video and in-car video evidence and determined that car 14 caused a collision with car 55 at turn nine. 

“The result of the collision was that car 55 was damaged and that car 14 had a puncture and retired before the end of the sprint session.

“As per the guidelines on driving standards, which was agreed with the teams, an infringement of this nature required that a baseline penalty of 10 seconds was to be added to the time of a car that caused a collision.”

As per the F1 regulations, teams have the opportunity to launch a right of review where they will have to submit new evidence to potentially get the incident looked at again.

Aston Martin will meet with the FIA on Friday morning, with Ferrari required to be in attendance as well.

On Tuesday afternoon, the FIA released the following: "It should be noted that this hearing will be held in two parts. The first part will be to hear evidence as to whether there is a 'significant and relevant new element which was unavailable to the party seeking the Review at the time of the decision concerned.'

"Should the Stewards determine, in accordance with Article 14.3 of the FIA International Sporting Code, that such an element exists, a second part of the hearing will be convened at a time to be advised. Any other 'concerned party' may seek the permission of the Stewards to be present for the second part of the hearing, should one be convened."