{"id":141577,"date":"2025-09-13T18:30:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141577\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T18:30:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:30:04","slug":"f1s-decision-to-reverse-carlos-sainz-jr-s-penalty-at-the-dutch-grand-prix-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141577\/","title":{"rendered":"F1\u2019s decision to reverse Carlos Sainz Jr.\u2019s penalty at the Dutch Grand Prix, explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix, Williams driver Carlos Sainz Jr. was given a ten-second penalty and handed two penalty points on his FIA Super License for causing a collision with Liam Lawson. When he was notified of the decision, Sainz predictably voiced his displeasure with the ruling.<\/p>\n

In a decision released on Saturday, Sainz\u2019s frustration proved fruitful.<\/p>\n

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Williams filed a petition requesting a Right of Review under Article 14 of the FIA Sporting Code. Following a pair of hearings on Friday, race stewards ultimately held that the collision in question was a racing incident, removing the two penalty points from Sainz\u2019s FIA Super License.<\/p>\n

You can see the collision in question here, as well as Sainz\u2019s immediate reaction:<\/p>\n

When informed of the penalty during the race, Sainz asked his team<\/a> \u201c[w]ho gets a penalty? Me? Are you joking? You\u2019re joking. I mean, it\u2019s the most ridiculous thing I\u2019ve heard in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a matter of procedure under Article 14 of the FIA Sporting Regulations, the first point to be decided was whether Williams had produced any \u201cnew\u201d evidence that was not available to race officials at the time of their initial determination. Specifically, Article 14.1.1. requires that the team requesting the Right of Review submit evidence that was \u201csignificant,\u201d \u201crelevant,\u201d \u201cnew,\u201d and \u201cunavailable to the party seeking the review [Williams] at the time of the original decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Williams submitted three pieces of new evidence: Footage from the 360-degree camera on both Sainz\u2019s car and Lawson\u2019s car, and testimony from Sainz himself.<\/p>\n

As outlined in the initial decision<\/a>, race stewards reviewed \u201cvideo, timing, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence\u201d when handing the penalties to Sainz at the Dutch Grand Prix. That evidence did not include the 360-degree camera views from both Sainz\u2019s car and Lawson\u2019s car, nor did they include Sainz\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n

Race stewards noted in their decision on Saturday<\/a> that while they had reservations regarding Sainz\u2019s testimony \u2014 and whether that was \u201csignificant\u201d under the guidelines outlined in Article 14.1.1 \u2014 they held that the 360-degree camera footage from both cars satisfied \u201call of the Review Criteria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therefore, the stewards decided to \u201cre-examine the Decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

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At the conclusion of the initial hearing, the race officials commenced a second hearing to re-examine the initial decision. Williams \u201creferred to the available video evidence which appeared to show [Sainz] attempting to overtake [Lawson] on the outside of the long radius turn 1 and the collision between the two cars occuring between the apex and the exit.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Williams, Sainz \u201cwas entitled to attempt to race alongside [Lawson] through turn 1,\u201d and the team described the collision as a \u201cracing incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Williams was not seeking any penalty for Lawson, just to overturn the penalty handed down to Sainz. As noted in the decision, Williams \u201cwere at pains to make clear that they were not suggestion that [Lawson] should be penalized, only that the penalty to [Sainz] was unjustified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sainz \u201cacknowledged that he was not strictly entitled to space on the outside of turn 1 and that [Lawson] could have used the whole of the track at the exit forcing [Sainz] to yield or take evasive action and go off track.\u201d The Williams driver testified that he would have been required to give a position back if the went off the track and rejoined in front of Lawson, but that what he was not ready for was Lawson \u201chaving a moment mid corner and colliding with his car.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A team representative from Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, relying on the Driving Standards, argued that Sainz \u201chad no right to space on the outside\u201d but that Lawson \u201chad nonetheless left significant space for [Sainz].\u201d Lawson testified as well, denying that he lost control of his car mid corner and said only that he incurred a \u201cslight snap of the type which occurred is not unusual when cars are racing closely side by side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, race officials agreed with Williams\u2019 description of the collision as a \u201cracing incident.\u201d Finding that the collision was \u201ccaused by a momentary loss of control by [Lawson,\u201d stewards found that \u201cno driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for that collision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding the penalties handed down to Sainz \u2014 a ten-second time penalty and two points on his FIA Super License \u2014 officials noted that the Williams driver had already served the time penalty. Noting that they have \u201cno power to remedy that served time penalty by amending\u201d the race finishing order, the stewards pointed to the fact that the gap from Sainz to the car that finished ahead of him in the final race classification (Lawson, as luck would have it) was 17 seconds.<\/p>\n

However, regarding the two penalty points, the race officials determined that those would be removed.<\/p>\n

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That drops Sainz\u2019s total number of penalty points down to two. Those were handed out at the Bahrain Grand Prix this season when race officials judged that the Williams driver forced Oliver Bearman off the track.<\/p>\n

Those two penalty points will expire next April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix, Williams driver Carlos Sainz Jr. was given a ten-second penalty and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,3020,578,76064,576,577,76065,3027,76063,82],"class_list":["post-141577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carlos-sainz","tag-f1","tag-fia-super-license","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-initial-decision","tag-liam-lawson","tag-penalty-points","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}