The Williams Formula 1 team has won its right of review request with the FIA over Carlos Sainz’s Dutch Grand Prix penalty - meaning the two licence points he received for the clash with Liam Lawson have been wiped.
Following a specially convened hearing to review the Zandvoort incident, the FIA stewards acknowledged Carlos Sainz's Dutch GP penalty for colliding with Lawson should not have been issued.
Both Williams and Sainz were adamant that the stewards handing down a 10-second penalty for the collision had acted incorrectly, because they had failed to take into account a snap of oversteer that Lawson had that they felt contributed to the accident
This FIA change of heart over the incident came after Williams was granted its review, having presented evidence that the stewards were content satisfied all the criteria for them to look at the matter again.
Having needed to provide evidence that was new and significant, Williams’s case was bolstered by some critical fresh elements.
The evidence presented by Williams was three-fold - footage from the 360° camera on Sainz's car, footage from the rear-facing camera on Lawson's car and testimony from Sainz supplementing those pieces of footage.
That footage, Williams pointed out, had been unavailable to the stewards because it is not transmitted during the race and instead only downloaded from the car afterwards.
Indeed, the stewards acknowledged that this footage passed the threshold for a new hearing in being 'new', 'relevant' and 'significant' as evidence - even if they did not feel the same way about additional testimony from Sainz.
Having granted the hearing, the stewards heard from both teams and drivers and ultimately concluded that it agreed with Williams on the clash being just a racing incident - with neither driver predominantly or wholly to blame.
In the statement outlining its decision, the FIA said: “The Stewards are satisfied that the collision was caused by a momentary loss of control by Car 30 (Lawson).
“However, in the Stewards’ assessment, no driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for that collision.
“Car 55 (Sainz) contributed to the incident by taking the risk to drive close to, and on the outside of, Car 30 when Car 55 had no right to room there and there was a real possibility that, if the collision had not occurred where it did, Car 55 would run out of track at the exit and/or a collision would have occurred at the exit for which the Driver of Car 55 would likely be predominantly if not wholly to blame.”
While acknowledging that Sainz had already served his 10-second penalty in the race so there was nothing it could do to give him that time back, it was a different matter with regards to the penalty points.
The FIA statement added: “The time penalty imposed by the Decision was served by Car 55 during the race.
“The Stewards have no power to remedy that served time penalty by amending the Classifications but note that the gap between Car 55 to the car ahead in the Final Classification of the race (coincidently Car 30) was 17 seconds.
“The Decision having been rescinded, it follows that the 2 penalty points
imposed on the Driver of Car 55 are to be removed.”
Williams welcomed the decision by the FIA, which came after Sainz was left incredulous about having been found guilty of causing the collision.
The team said: “We are grateful to the stewards for reviewing Carlos' Zandvoort penalty and are pleased they have now decided he was not at fault and that this was a racing incident.
“While it is frustrating that our race was compromised by the original decision, mistakes are part of motor racing and we will continue to work constructively with the FIA to improve stewarding processes and review the racing rules for the future.”
