Метка: Carlos Sainz

Aston Martin requests right of review for Alonso’s China F1 penalty

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Alonso had been given a 10-second time penalty in the sprint and three penalty points on his licence after he collided with Carlos Sainz in the Saturday race.

The Spaniards were fighting over third position when they clashed at Turn 9, which gave the two-time world champion a puncture and led to his retirement from the race. Sergio Perez took advantage of the incident to score a top-three finish.

The stewards decided to take action against Alonso «as per the guidelines on driving standards», but the Aston Martin driver was not convinced he was at fault.

“Turn 7, I think we were evenly matched, then in turn 8 I tried to go to the outside,” he said after the sprint. “But he opened the line to not leave me room, so in turn 9 I did the same thing he did in turn 8.

“I tried to go to the inside to not leave him room on the line, but in turn 8 I opened up so we didn’t touch, and in turn 9 he didn’t open up. So we touched.”

The team will now need to provide fresh evidence to the stewards for them to consider amending their ruling. A first hearing will be held on 3 May with Aston Martin’s and Ferrari’s team managers to determine whether the evidence put forward by the British outfit does warrant the stewards’ consideration.

«It should be noted that this hearing will be held in two parts,» the stewards wrote in their statement. «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.»



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Teams expect Sainz’s F1 China qualifying incident to be cleared up

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Aston Martin protested against the qualifying result in Shanghai after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz rejoined Q2 after spinning off the track.

Sainz was stationary for 77 seconds after tapping the wall coming out of the final corner, but the Spaniard managed to get going again and advanced to Q3 at the expense of Aston driver Lance Stroll.

As its driver was eliminated, Aston decided to protest the results based on article 39.6 of the F1 sporting regulations, which states that «any driver whose car stops on the track during the qualifying session or the sprint qualifying session shootout will not be permitted to take any further part in that session.”

The stewards dismissed the protest as it had been clear from previous instances that the rule is only intended for cars that re-join a qualifying session after having received outside assistance from marshals or recovery vehicles, while Sainz continued under his own power.

But the incident re-opened a discussion about tidying up the rulebook, as previously it was agreed that the outside assistance element should be added to 39.6, though the amendment didn’t make it into the 2024 sporting regulations.

«It’s just clarifying things and, in the end, a lot of discussion with the stewards and you’ve got to respect the decisions they’ve come to,» Aston Martin’s performance director Tom McCullough explained.

«But hopefully it’ll get tidied up and be less ambiguous going forward because it’s pretty clearly stated in the messaging system that the car stopped.

«That article says that that car shouldn’t take part further in qualifying. So, that’ll get tidied up going forward.»

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur agreed that an explicit clarification is welcome to avoid further confusion, pointing out that F1’s sporting regulations have become ever more complex.

«I don’t know if it’s clear, but for sure we need to have some understanding of what happened,» Vasseur said.

«We asked the race director if we could restart, he said yes, and it was the end of the story. We have to define the situation exactly.

«But what is true is that the regulations are more and more complicated. When I started the job, the sporting regulation was 20 pages, today it’s 75.

«We are all trying to find a loophole and the regulations are now more and more complicated, but on this one, we will find an easy clarification.»

McCullough revealed Aston’s long-time sporting director Andy Stevenson immediately called out the potential rules breach once Sainz’s car had stopped on track.

«Andy sits next to me on the pit wall and he knows that rulebook inside out, he is like an encyclopaedia. He’s been here for so long,» McCullough said.

«The minute it came up on the official messaging system that a car had stopped, he went — bang — ‘Article 39.6, he can’t [rejoin].’

«We were a little bit surprised, which is why [we protested].»



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Leclerc start battle cost Ferrari in F1 China GP

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Leclerc and Sainz lined up sixth and seventh respectively, but both lost positions to Mercedes driver George Russell and Haas man Nico Hulkenberg as they crossed paths in Shanghai’s first corner complex.

Sainz was pushed wide in Turn 2 by an understeering Leclerc, who visibly struggled to get his tyres up to temperature, further illustrated by a huge moment for the Monegasque in the second sector.

While Hulkenberg was easy prey for both, Russell proved a tougher nut to crack. Leclerc finally passed him on lap 9, while Sainz had to wait for the Briton to pit before being released into clear air until the mid-race safety car.

«It was a bit of a crazy race. What we did at the start cost both Charles and I one or two positions and that cost us a lot in the race,» Sainz said about the intra-team battle to Spanish broadcaster DAZN.

«Then we tried to follow the Mercedes, we tried to overtake him but he stopped and then we stopped, we put the hard tyres on very early.

«In the last stint, I had to go very long, but we still managed to hang on for fifth, which I think was the maximum we could do.»

Ferrari was tipped to do well in Shanghai, but that didn’t prove to be the case as it struggled for pace on the harder Pirelli compound.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

«Honestly, we weren’t very fast this weekend, when you qualify sixth and seventh there’s not a lot of pace in the car,» said Sainz.

«In the race, we expected to be better but we weren’t, so clearly this is the circuit where we suffered the most.

«We need to check if we’ve done everything we could with the set-up and if not, it’s time to work on the car because this type of circuit didn’t go well for us.»

«I just focused on getting to the end and making sure Russell didn’t pass me on new tyres, and we managed to do that.»

Earlier in the weekend Leclerc felt Sainz «went a bit over the limit» defending his position to his team-mate in the sprint race, before declaring the matter was cleared up internally.

Sainz is F1’s highest-profile free agent on the 2025 driver market, as he is set to leave Ferrari at the end of the season following the Scuderia’s signing of Lewis Hamilton.



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Ferrari still in hunt for more F1 wins despite Red Bull’s Suzuka dominance, says Sainz

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The Spaniard arrived at Suzuka in a buoyant mood after leading team-mate Charles Leclerc to a 1-2 finish at the Australian GP, and hopes had been high of a strong showing in qualifying after some promising long-run form in practice.

However, Ferrari endured a more challenging time in the fight for grid positions, as Sainz ended up fourth on the grid – 0.485 seconds adrift of pole position man Max Verstappen. Leclerc qualified eighth.

And while that gap to the front has highlighted just how much more progress Ferrari needs to make before it can consider itself a proper challenger to Red Bull, he thinks that it is a track-specific phenomenon that has been exposed here.

Asked by Autosport if the weekend had been a reality check for where Ferrari really stood against Red Bull, Sainz said: “Yeah. But we will fight for wins in other tracks.

“We will maybe go to the Monzas or the Singapores, and Miami maybe, and we’re still in the mix, you know, for [the victory]. But there’s other tracks where the Red Bull is just simply a much better package.

“As I said in the press conference [on Thursday], until we develop this car for this kind of track, they will be three-tenths to half a second ahead. So it’s time to put our heads down and try to bring a good package to help at this sort of track.”

Sainz explained that he never expected Ferrari to shine at Suzuka, with the circuits’s high-speed swoops putting a premium on the kind of aero performance that Red Bull’s RB20 is so strong at.

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“That’s why yesterday I was trying to bring everyone down a bit — because I knew that being one second away last year [was not going to be wiped away this year],” he explained.

“I know that we didn’t improve one second the car from last year to this year in a place like Suzuka, so it was going to be always tricky.

“But I’m very happy with how the car feels this year. It’s a step better. We just need to do another step in this sort of track. Anyway, I did some very clean, good laps today, that put me P4, which is a good position to fight tomorrow.”

But as well as Red Bull being clearly in front, Sainz reckoned that Suzuka had shown that McLaren too had an edge at high-speed venues.

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“It’s clear that in the sort of long high-speed corners, the Red Bull and McLaren are still a step ahead of us,” he added. “A clear step ahead of us.

“But hopefully tomorrow we can fight for the podium. I think in the race, Red Bull are still out of reach. But with the McLaren hopefully, we can be a bit closer in the race.”



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