The Melbourne stewards have dismissed Haas' protest of the result of today's Grand Prix, deeming Race Control and the Race Director made the correct call "given the data available to him at the time".

Admissibility of the protest

1. The protest lodged by MoneyGram Haas F1 Team ("Haas") that was received was against:

"the provisional classification of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, received today at 18:05" [emphasis added]

2. Under Article 13 of the International Sporting Code (ISC), the scenarios in which a protest can be lodged by a Competitor are set out. It includes a protest against a classification.

3. In the circumstances, the protest, on its face appears to be compliant with the ISC.

4. We consider now the substance of the Protest, which appears to be about the way in which the order of the grid was set up for the restart of the Race after a Red Flag event in lap 57/58 rather than the classification itself.

Substantive Grounds

5. The Protest was founded on the following grounds:

a. "Breach of sporting regulation article 57.3;

b. It was possible for the position of all the cars to be determined at the SC2 line not the previous starting grid."

6. Art 57.3 of the F1 Sporting Regulation states:

"In all cases the order will be taken at the last point at which it was possible to determine the position of all cars..."

7. In this instance, the race was resumed after another Red Flag incident. Very shortly thereafter, there was a further Red Flag incident within the first two corners of the resumed race and Race Control had to determine what the order of the grid ought to be for the next restart based on Art 57.3.

8. Race Control determined that the last point at which it was possible to the determine the position of all cars was when the last grid was formed. We summoned the Race Director to provide further clarification and he said that in the time available for the continuation of the race, the most reliable point was the last grid, given the data available to him at the time; the relative positions of the cars and the incidents on the track.

9. Haas suggested that the relative positions of the cars could be established as at the SC2 line instead. They suggested that if that line was used then the starting grid position of their car would have been different.

10. They acknowledged that the GPS data that showed the relative positions of the cars was unreliable for the purpose of establishing the order of cars.

11. They contended that instead of the last grid, that the timing data ought to have been used to establish the order of the cars.

12. Having considered all the arguments made, we made the following determination.

13. Art. 57.3 required that a restart grid order be organized in accordance with order at the:

"last point at which it was possible to determine the position of all cars"

14. This determination needed to be done in the context of a timed race event and therefore the decision of Race Control and the Race Director needed to be made promptly; with the exercise of appropriate discretion and by using the most appropriate information available to them at the time.

15. In the circumstances, based on what we heard from the FIA representatives and from Haas, we considered that this was in fact done appropriately by the Race Director in this instance and therefore dismiss the protest.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Melbourne here.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by BlueWave, 04/04/2023 13:25

"Sorry correction, my comment below is off by one lap on each of those.
red flag on lap 55
warm up lap 56
restart lap 57, red flag again, back to pits.
warmup lap 58 to finish line."

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by BlueWave, 04/04/2023 12:40

"@estoril85
From what I remember in the past, every time the leader crosses the start/finish line it completes the lap and starts the next one.
So when there is a red flag on lap 56, the leader pits. Then when the track is clear again they leave the pits, crossing the line starting lap 57, which is the warm up lap to the grid. When the flag goes green they immediately crossed the start/finish line and started lap 58.
This is because of the race distance and amount of fuel the cars carry.

The rules only 'look' back one lap for the re-start order only, they do not stop counting laps.

Imagine if there were 5 red flags in a row in turn 1. The remaining cars would travel 10 laps around (red flag in and warm-up to the grid)."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by Motorsport-fan, 03/04/2023 8:31

"Comments posted here are correct and what i was shouting at the TV, if we can see it how come the officials cannot?"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

4. Posted by estoril85, 02/04/2023 14:37

"As I see it the rules have once again not been followed properly.

Lap 56 - red flag - stewards decide standing start, grid positions determined by order the cars crossed the line at the end of the last racing lap (correct)
Lap 56 restart - Red flag - accident- cars eliminated , restart determined by positions cars held when crossing the line at the last racing lap (end lap 55) As correctly pointed out by Alonso over the radio.
Stewards decide on rolling safety car start in order cars crossed line at the end of lap 55 ( correct)
Sainz penalty on a lap that was red flagged and therefore not counting IMO is incorrect
RESTART Lap 58 behind safety car (incorrect)
What happened to laps 56 & 57
Rules not applied - safety car restart (stewards discretion over a standing or rolling start is perfectly OK) butshould have been Lap 56 , 1 lap behind safety car then green flag for laps 57 & 58 would have been the correct application of the rules.

Sainz penalty was very harsh and should not have been applied as Alonso was able to regain his correct position in the first instance and it was a racing incident on a first corner start in the second instance. Note no penalty for Stroll on Leclerc in the original start (which was also a racing incident)

More inconsistencies from race control I'm afraid.
"

Rating: Positive (9) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

5. Posted by Pavlo, 02/04/2023 14:21

"If positions were determined by the starting line, what for did Sainz get a penalty?
Without a red flag Sainz would have lost less positions and Alonso would be the last. It also is quite awkward to apply time penalty to the finish under the SC, which makes it weird to give such penalty knowing what it means.
“All places” penalty for a small mistake with no consequences."

Rating: Positive (3) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

6. Posted by Burton, 02/04/2023 13:59

"So the protest is dismissed because Wittich FELT like resuming the race quickly rather than look at everything properly?"

Rating: Positive (2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

Haas protest dismissed

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page