Sebastien Buemi has been reinstated as the third place finisher in the recent Jakarta E-Prix after his penalty for what was deemed to be a collision with Edoardo Mortara’s Mahindra was rescinded.
In a rare successful appeal, which came via an initial petition for review earlier this week, Buemi's Envision team provided additional camera footage and rationale of the incident to get the five-second penalty, which dropped Buemi from third to eighth in the final classification, overturned.
It means that Buemi usurps Nico Mueller in the classification to take his second podium of the season after his Monaco E-Prix win. The re-jigged result also ensures that Buemi goes from 12th to 10th in the drivers’ standings and Envision vaults Cupra Kiro into ninth place in the teams’ points standings.
Buemi and Envision had initially argued their cases after the race, but to no avail before the petition for review was submitted within the 96-hour deadline post-decision.
The initial review was heard earlier this week before a separate appeal was heard remotely this afternoon between the Envision team, the FIA stewards and driver advisor for the Jakarta E-Prix, ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Yoong.
The reversing of the decision was outlined because according to the official wording of the decision the stewards "considered that there was a significant and relevant new element which was unavailable to the party seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned (i.e., the Car 16 roll hoop onboard camera (view from above driver’s helmet) (the “new element”), and they decided to re-examine Decision 12 which was taken during the race.
"Accordingly, the Stewards held a hearing with the team representative of Envision Racing, the team representative of Mahindra Racing, the driver of Car 16 (Buemi) and the driver of Car 48 (Mortara). During that hearing, the stewards reviewed the videos that they had at their disposal when they took the decision but also the new element. The stewards were also able to listen to the drivers involved, who gave their opinion on the new element.
The decision continued to detail that Buemi "argued that the new element shows that his overtaking manoeuvre was legit, that he was always in control of his car and that when the slight contact between the two cars occurred, he was fully alongside Car 48.
"The driver of Car 48 agreed with what the driver of Car 16 said and added that he barely felt the contact."
That constituted that "no single party bears whole or predominant responsibility for the collision" and the decision was reversed.
The FIA is set to reallocate the official trophies and issue an amended final result shortly, although teams are eligible to appeal the decision itself, but are not expected to.
