The FIA Stewards have rejected the Right of Review request Aston Martin lodged in response to Fernando Alonso’s penalty in Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix Sprint.
Alonso was battling with Carlos Sainz in the closing stages of the truncated race for third when he dived up the Ferrari driver’s inside at Turn 9 and the pair touched.
The Spaniard in the Aston Martin car was handed a 10-second time drop, which did not impact his result as he incurred a puncture from the contact and then retired.
However, Alonso was also allocated three penalty points on his license for the clash, bringing his total for the current 12-month period to six – halfway to a race ban.
Aston Martin announced earlier in the week that it had opted to exercise its right to reopen the case, with a hearing with the stewards set for Friday morning in Miami.
But with representatives from Ferrari also in attendance, the Stewards ruled that Aston Martin failed to provide new evidence that had not been available at that time.
Speaking to media including Motorsport Week on Thursday in Miami, Alonso explained that the review had been made to clear up inconsistencies in steward rulings.
“Obviously we have different opinions, but this happens in in any sport, probably,” he said.
“You know, even when you see, when you watch football on TV, you know, depending on which team you are, it’s a yellow card or red card or not even, so yeah, I think we will have different opinions as well always.
“I think that in China one it was I think 99% of the people were enjoying the Sprint event, and the battles and I think I had the hardest penalty of the race.
“So maybe it was a little bit confusing there, but let’s see tomorrow.”
The two-time F1 champion continued to argue that he disagreed with the decision to penalise him in Australia for his role in George Russell’s last-lap crash in the race.
“Well, as I said, you know, the rules are the rules, and we accept those and sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree,” he added.
“But we have to accept it because they have all the power to make those decisions, and they all the understanding of the rules.
“But, as I said, you know, I had the hardest penalty in the last two events in Australia and in China, so it’s good to make sure that everything is OK and nothing else is happening.
In a hearing attended by Aston Martin and Ferrari, FIA stewards disagreed with Aston Martin’s visual evidence provided.
The Silverstone-based team provided forward-facing camera footage of the incident, which was posited to persuade the stewards against their decision made during the Sprint Race.
Race stewards found that the footage was not enough to sway their original decision, on the basis that the new camera angles were not enough to change the original decision.
Despite the new evidence given by Aston Martin, stewards claimed that their in-race decision-making was based on a strong amount of alternative footage available at the time.
The stewards explained: “The alleged new element presented was a forward-facing video footage of car 14 which was unavailable to Aston Martin and the stewards at the time of the original decision – it was downloaded post the sprint session by F1.
“While the stewards had various other footage of the incident from different camera angles, they did not have this footage.
“In its written submission seeking the review, Aston Martin suggested that the new camera angle showed that the incident in question was a racing incident and not one for which their driver should be penalised.”
“Even though we did not have this footage at the time we made our decision, we did not consider the footage to be a “significant” new element. The new footage would not have caused us to question our decision or otherwise give us a perspective that we did not already have of the incident.
“There was sufficient footage from other camera angles to give us a clear basis to make the decisions.”
