Aston Martin’s protest towards the Chinese language Grand Prix qualifying outcomes based mostly on Carlos Sainz’s participation has been dismissed by the stewards.
Sainz had crashed throughout Q2 after spinning out of the ultimate nook, hitting the wall on the within of the monitor and breaking his entrance wing in addition to damaging the hoardings on the barrier. The session was crimson flagged however Sainz was capable of restart his energy unit and the injury was gentle sufficient that he might then return to the pits for repairs and rejoin earlier than the tip of Q2.
With Sainz advancing to Q3 and Lance Stroll eradicated in eleventh place, Aston Martin protested the qualifying outcomes based mostly on Article 39.6 of the Sporting Laws, that states: “Any driver whose automobile stops on the monitor through the qualifying session or the dash shootout is not going to be permitted to take any additional half in that session.”
Plenty of different groups had representatives within the listening to into the Aston Martin course of, and acknowledged that there had been a number of examples prior to now of automobiles stopping on monitor and with the ability to proceed with out exterior help and being allowed to rejoin the session with out protest. That was an argument the stewards sided with, and dismissed the protest.
Within the listening to, “Aston additionally accepted that there have been prior examples of automobiles stopping on monitor and being allowed to proceed, regardless of the plain wording of Article 39.6. Nonetheless, they felt that stopping, on this case, for 1 minute and 17 seconds was too lengthy and due to this fact shouldn’t have been permitted.”
When confronted with the query of period, the stewards acknowledged previous examples and race management’s judgement must be adopted on the problem.
“Absent clear steering within the rules or an agreed, established follow of when too lengthy was too lengthy, we thought-about that this was a discretion finest left to race management,” the stewards’ choice learn.
“Within the above circumstances, bearing in mind the quite a few examples the place automobiles had stopped for various lengths of time and had been permitted to restart and proceed to take part within the session involved, we thought-about that the choice taken by race management was not inconsistent with previous follow nor in breach of Article 39.6.
“We thought-about that even when the plain wording of Article 39.6 warranted a extra stark conclusion, the constant follow within the sport up to now didn’t warrant a setting apart of the discretion exercised by race management by us as stewards.”
It was additionally identified that an F1 Fee assembly in July final yr noticed the groups attain an settlement “so as to add ‘exterior help’ to Article 39.6”, though that change was not subsequently made.
On account of the protest being dismissed, Sainz retains his seventh place on the grid for Sunday’s race.
