Autobayng News Team
When Formula 1 teams request a ‘Right of Review’ hearing from the FIA’s stewards, they know their chances of success are slim.
But there is an obvious attraction for those who try: the possibility of improving their race result by either overturning a penalty for one of their drivers or incurring one for a rival.
This is what makes Williams’s challenge to Carlos Sainz Jnr’s penalty in last week’s Dutch Grand Prix different to many of those we have seen before. He has already served his 10-second time penalty so it cannot be retroactively overturned. The best they can hope for in terms of restitution is removing from his licence the two penalty points he collected.
Even that looks like a faint hope, however. It’s been two-and-a-half years since the last time a team succeeded in the tricky process of first obtaining a hearing and then winning it.
Sainz feels strongly that the stewards were too quick to judge his collision with Liam Lawson. The Williams driver was trying to overtake the Racing Bulls on the outside of Tarzan when the pair made contact. It proved mutually destructive: both dropped back with damage and as a result neither finished in the points.
As far as Sainz is concerned the stewards made their decision in a hurry and did not fully consider the circumstances of the collision. “I think what happened in my case in Zandvoort was a consequence of trying to rush a decision without looking deep enough in the analysis,” he said.
“If you just apply the rule in the rulebook, you could understand why they would want to penalise me. The moment you analyse the onboard footage and go into detail, you can clearly see why I should have never got a penalty.”
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It’s certainly not unusual for a driver to take issue with a penalty. But Sainz does have some form in this respect.
Recall his impassioned criticism of his penalty for taking out Fernando Alonso at Melbourne two years ago. Sainz called that “the most unfair penalty I’ve ever seen” at the time and Ferrari attempted to overturn the decision by requesting a ‘Right of Review’ hearing.
They failed for the same reason many similar requests have previously been unsuccessful. The stewards did not agree they had identified a “significant and relevant new element” which they should consider.
How will Williams try to meet this standard? Williams team principal James Vowles pointed out Lawson corrected a snap of oversteer mid-corner which moved him wide into his driver. However this was visible from Lawson’s onboard camera at the time and the stewards noted in their decision they “reviewed video” in making their decision.
The stewards clearly referenced F1’s recently-published racing guidelines when they issued their decision. The guidelines place significant onus on which driver has the “right to the corner”.
In this case the stewards have applied the letter of the law by judging Lawson had the “right” in this case. But the implication of their decision is that once a driver ‘wins’ a corner, any collision must therefore be the fault of the other driver, with no possibility of a ‘racing incident’ occuring. This cannot be right.
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The stewards set a questionable precedent and their application of the guidelines in this case should be tested. But history tells us this is very unlikely to happen.
F1 Right of Review requests, 2019-date
| Date of decision | Team | Event | Incident | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21/6/2019 | Ferrari | Canadian GP | Sebastian Vettel rejoined the track in an unsafe fashion | Failed |
| 5/7/2020 | Red Bull | Austrian GP | Lewis Hamilton failed to slow for yellow flags | Succeeded |
| 2/5/2021 | Alfa Romeo | Emilia Romagna GP | Kimi Raikkonen failed to re-establish the correct restart order | Failed |
| 29/7/2021 | Red Bull | British GP | Lewis Hamilton given a 10-second penalty for colliding with Max Verstappen (Red Bull sought harsher penalty) | Failed |
| 9/8/2021 | Aston Martin | Hungarian GP | Sebastian Vettel’s car disqualified for being underweight | Failed |
| 19/11/2021 | Mercedes | Brazilian GP | Max Verstappen forced Lewis Hamilton off the track | Failed |
| 28/10/2022 | Haas | United States GP | Haas submitted protest against Fernando Alonso too late | Succeeded |
| 19/3/2023 | Aston Martin | Saudi Arabian GP | Fernando Alonso failed to serve a five-second time penalty correctly | Succeeded |
| 18/4/2023 | Ferrari | Australian GP | Carlos Sainz Jnr collided with Fernando Alonso | Failed |
| 2/7/2023 | McLaren | Canadian GP | Lando Norris penalised for unsportsmanlike driving | Failed |
| 9/11/2023 | Haas | United States GP | Track limits breaches | Failed |
| 5/5/2024 | Aston Martin | Chinese GP | Fernando Alonso collided with Carlos Sainz Jnr | Failed |
| 26/10/2024 | McLaren | United States GP | Lando Norris was penalised for overtaking Max Verstappen off the track | Failed |
NB. ‘Right of Review’ requests are different to ‘protests’, such as those brought by Red Bull at the Miami and Canadian grands prix
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