The MoneyGram Haas F1 Team protested the result of the Australian Grand Prix after the late race red flags, with the team claiming the positions at the final red flag should have stood rather than the positions at the restart.
Had Haas’ protest been successful, Nico Hülkenberg could have been in line for his maiden podium finish in the Formula 1 World Championship, the German having been running fourth on the road behind Carlos Sainz Jr., who would be handed a five-second time penalty for colliding with Fernando Alonso at turn one.
The likes of Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would also have benefitted had the order remained the same, with Alonso and Lance Stroll eleventh and twelfth.
However, after much deliberation post-race, the stewards believed there was no clear cut way of determining the true running order of the field, the red flags having come out before the first sector of the lap had been completed.
As a result, the order on the grid for the restart was used as the order for the final lap tour to the chequered flag, meaning Hülkenberg ended down in seventh, with Alonso and Stroll reclaiming their positions in third and fourth.
“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”,” read the FIA statement.
“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.
“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.”
FIA Declare Racing Incident over Gasly/Ocon Clash
Another decision that was long in the making was whether to penalise Pierre Gasly over the incident that left both him and his BWT Alpine F1 Team team-mate Esteban Ocon in the barriers on that final standing restart.
Gasly was having a super race for Alpine and was keeping in touch with Scuderia Ferrari’s Sainz for long spells of the race. Had the race gone through without the red flag, fifth place would have been his for the taking.
However, he ran wide at turn one on the late restart and re-joined the track at turn two, only to run into the side of Ocon. Both drivers hit the outside wall and were eliminated, and with the race resuming for one lap behind the safety car after the incident caused a third red flag of the race, it meant the team left Australia without scoring points.
Gasly, who is only two penalty points away from a one-race ban, was left sweating as the stewards deliberated, but ultimately it was deemed a racing incident and he is free now to race in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the end of the month.
“The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 10 (Pierre Gasly), the driver of Car 31 (Esteban Ocon), a team representative and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video and in-car video evidence and determined that it was a first lap racing incident,” read the FIA statement.
“Both cars recognised and accepted this as such. In the circumstances, we took no further action.”
Pierre Gasly escaped penalty for his part in the chaos at the final standing restart – Credit: BWT Alpine F1 Team