Ferrari asked for help after Sainz was given a five-second penalty because of his crash with Fernando Alonso during the last restart at the Grand Prix in Melbourne. It caused some accidents which led to the race being stopped three times. After that, Sainz got the penalty and he had to race behind a safety car just for one lap until the end.
Sainz was in fourth place but because all the other drivers stayed close together, he dropped to 12th place. Sainz and his team boss Fred Vasseur were both angry that he got a penalty without anyone from the race hearing from them first. To try to get his penalty taken away they started the right of review process.
Ferrari has to show that it has something new and important before being allowed to explain it. The officials will then look at the information Ferrari gave them.
On Friday, the FIA said that Scuderia Ferrari had sent a letter to the stewards of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix. The letter was using Article 14 of the FIA International Sporting Code and asked the stewards to review their earlier decision related to the Grand Prix. The Stewards must decide if a new element exists in relation to their previous decision.
Ferrari team driver Carlos Sainz must attend a digital meeting with the race stewards on April 18, 2023 at 8 am in Central European Time. Some other teams who are affected by this decision can join the meeting too.
If Sainz wins his fourth spot back, all the drivers who came after him – Stroll, Perez, Norris, Hulkenberg, Piastri, Zhou and Tsunoda – will then get moved down one position and lose some points.
Vasseur said that last week there was going to be two hearings. First, they will check our request to open the case again. Then, we’ll have a second hearing with new people and discuss the actual decision. We want an open conversation with them so the sport doesn’t end up having different decisions for the same corner.
Carlos was really angry because he didn’t get to have a hearing about the special race case, even though it wouldn’t have affected the podium. Both Gasly and Ocon were granted hearings in this situation.
