Aston Martin’s protest against the Chinese Grand Prix qualifying results based on Carlos Sainz’s participation has been dismissed by the stewards.
Sainz had crashed during Q2 after spinning out of the final corner, hitting the wall on the inside of the track and breaking his front wing as well as damaging the hoardings on the barrier. The session was red flagged but Sainz was able to restart his power unit and the damage was light enough that he could then return to the pits for repairs and rejoin before the end of Q2.
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With Sainz advancing to Q3 and Lance Stroll eliminated in 11th place, Aston Martin protested the qualifying results based on Article 39.6 of the Sporting Regulations, that states: “Any driver whose car stops on the track during the qualifying session or the sprint shootout will not be permitted to take any further part in that session.”
A number of other teams had representatives in the hearing into the Aston Martin process, and stated that there had been multiple examples in the past of cars stopping on track and being able to continue without outside assistance and being allowed to rejoin the session without protest. That was an argument the stewards sided with, and dismissed the protest.
In the hearing, “Aston also accepted that there were prior examples of cars stopping on track and being allowed to continue, despite the plain wording of Article 39.6. However, they felt that stopping, in this case, for 1 minute and 17 seconds was too long and therefore should not have been permitted.”
When faced with the question of duration, the stewards stated past examples and race control’s judgement should be followed on the issue.
“Absent clear guidance in the regulations or an agreed, established practice of when too long was too long, we considered that this was a discretion best left to race control,” the stewards’ decision read.
“In the above circumstances, taking into account the numerous examples where cars had stopped for different lengths of time and were permitted to restart and continue to participate in the session concerned, we considered that the decision taken by race control was not inconsistent with past practice nor in breach of Article 39.6.
“We considered that even if the plain wording of Article 39.6 warranted a more stark conclusion, the consistent practice in the sport to date did not warrant a setting aside of the discretion exercised by race control by us as stewards.”
It was also pointed out that an F1 Commission meeting in July last year saw the teams reach an agreement “to add ‘outside assistance’ to Article 39.6”, although that change was not subsequently made.
As a result of the protest being dismissed, Sainz retains his seventh place on the grid for Sunday’s race.