Kimi Raikkonen, Alfa Romeo, Hockenheimring, 2019

Williams keep only point of 2019 so far as appeal court rejects Alfa Romeo protest

2019 German Grand Prix

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Alfa Romeo has confirmed to RaceFans it has failed in its attempt to appeal against the penalties given to Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi in the German Grand Prix.

The court ruled Alfa Romeo’s appeal was inadmissible. The full verdict has not yet been published by the FIA.

The four-person panel assembled for the hearing was Philippe Roberti de Winghe, Harry Duijm, Ulrich Haas, David Miles and Erich Sewdelmayer.

Both Alfa Romeo drivers were given 10-second stop-and-go penalties after the race when the stewards found the team had breached rule on clutch behaviour designed to ensure the drivers “drive the car alone and unaided”.

The team fell foul of a rule which required that the torque in the clutch must match the the torque demand from the driver within 70 milliseconds. The delay on Raikkonen and Giovinazzi’s cars was measured at 200 and 300 milliseconds respectively.

The stewards stated at the time “this provided a more gradual application of the torque, which given the wet conditions was a potential advantage.

Raikkonen and Giovinazzi originally finished seventh and eighth. Their penalty promoted the two Haas drivers in their place and handed points to Lewis Hamilton for ninth place and Robert Kubica for 10th. The latter is Williams’s only point of the season so far.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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22 comments on “Williams keep only point of 2019 so far as appeal court rejects Alfa Romeo protest”

  1. Is Kubica the only driver with disability to score point in F1? If so that will be record that Kubica should be proud off.

    1. @Chaitanya I’m not sure. If not, then the previous example must be from a very distant past.

      1. @jerejj, there are examples from the 1990s, with both Brundle and Herbert managing to score points and victories, even though both of those drivers were physically disabled (with restricted motion in their lower legs due to injuries in junior series or in Formula 1).

        From earlier in the past, Jean-Pierre Beltoise is another reasonably well known example of a driver enjoying success whilst disabled, and in fact one that has parallels with Kubica.

        In 1964, Beltoise had his left arm shattered in a sportscar race that almost claimed his life and left him with permanent restricted movement in his left arm – a situation not unlike that of Kubica. Despite that, Beltoise continued racing in sportscars and in Formula 1 – he raced in Formula 1 from 1966 to 1974, where he was able to win the 1972 Monaco Grand Prix and picked up seven other podium finishes, not to mention also managing a class win and two class podium finishes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the same time.

        In terms of those with mental disabilities, there are again a number of drivers who have achieved a significant amount within the sport despite those limitations – Jackie Stewart famously suffers from severe dyslexia, yet went on to achieve three world titles in the span of his career.

        Similarly, Lewis Hamilton revealed a few years ago that he also suffers from severe dyslexia – severe enough that it nearly cost him his place on McLaren’s Junior Driver programme, until they diagnosed that he was dyslexic – meaning that the current World Drivers Champion is also somebody who has a severe learning disorder.

        I do not want my post to come across as downplaying what Kubica has achieved, as in many ways just being able to get back into F1 is commendable (even if perhaps it has not worked out as well as some had hoped). Rather, I would like it to show that Kubica is one of a number of drivers who have, over many years, managed to make it into Formula 1 and overcome mental or physical impairments to achieve success and to celebrate what those drivers have managed to do.

    2. Johnny Herbert would like a word with you…

    3. He can thank the mercedes gp for it.

  2. Jose Lopes da Silva
    24th September 2019, 13:23

    Points
    Interval between two

    n Driver Year Grand Prix
    1 KUBICA Robert 8y 08m 14d 168 Abu Dhabi 2010 – Germany 2019
    2 BIANCHI Lucien 7y 11m 07d 74 Belgium 1960 – Monaco 1968
    3 HAILWOOD Mike 7y 03m 26d 83 Monaco 1964 – Italy 1971
    4 PARSONS Johnnie 6y 00m 00d 47 Indianapolis 1950 – Indianapolis 1956
    5 LINDEN Andy 6y 00m 00d 49 Indianapolis 1951 – Indianapolis 1957
    6 HERRMANN Hans 5y 07m 19d 50 Argentina 1955 – Italy 1960
    7 ROSIER Louis 5y 01m 19d 44 Belgium 1951 – Germany 1956
    8 STOMMELEN Rolf 5y 00m 15d 70 Britain 1971 – Germany 1976
    9 BETTENHAUSEN Tony 5y 00m 00d 40 Indianapolis 1950 – Indianapolis 1955
    10 RATHMANN Jim 5y 00m 00d 41 Indianapolis 1952 – Indianapolis 1957

    https://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques/pilote/point/ecart.aspx

    1. Bad stat as only the first 6 used to score

      1. Indeed, I don’t like not normalized points comparisons of any kind cause they give no chance whatsoever to older drivers.

  3. Jose Lopes da Silva
    24th September 2019, 13:24

    Points
    Interval between the first and the last
    n Driver Year Grand Prix
    1 SCHUMACHER Michael 21y 02m 17d 365 Italy 1991 – Brazil 2012
    2 RAIKKONEN Kimi 18y 05m 00d 344 Australia 2001 – Hungary 2019
    3 BARRICHELLO Rubens 17y 07m 19d 298 Japan 1993 – Canada 2011
    4 BUTTON Jenson 16y 06m 27d 304 Brazil 2000 – USA 2016
    5 PATRESE Riccardo 15y 10m 20d 247 Japan 1977 – Italy 1993
    6 MASSA Felipe 15y 08m 09d 293 Malaysia 2002 – Abu Dhabi 2017
    7 ALONSO Fernando 15y 06m 07d 292 Australia 2003 – Singapore 2018
    8 COULTHARD David 14y 03m 16d 245 Canada 1994 – Singapore 2008
    9 HILL Graham 14y 00m 03d 153 Netherlands 1960 – Sweden 1974
    10 PROST Alain 13y 09m 25d 218 Argentina 1980 – Australia 1993
    11 MANSELL Nigel 13y 05m 27d 216 Belgium 1981 – Australia 1994
    12 De CESARIS Andrea 13y 02m 00d 208 San Marino 1981 – France 1994
    13 KUBICA Robert 12y 10m 18d 242 Italy 2006 – Germany 2019
    14 HAMILTON Lewis 12y 06m 04d 242 Australia 2007 – Singapore 2019
    15 ANDRETTI Mario 12y 04m 24d 185 Spain 1970 – Italy 1982

  4. Yeah it’s bad title it should be Kubica keeps …

  5. Appeal courts everywhere are getting it wrong today….

    1. Don’t feed the troll, the saying goes. It doesn’t mention laughing about them. Heh.

      1. When Williams was having their testing woes, I’d thought about trying to see if someone would have given me odds on Williams failing to score a point all season. Since I didn’t I’m equal parts upset and happy about this.

  6. Hurray

  7. This was not surprising. In-race “time” penalties have never been admissible to the appeals courts, even if the stewards didn’t get round to issuing them until afterwards. It’s only disqualifications and the like that can be appealed.

  8. Seems like a technical regulation has been broken. Here the drivers were given penalties rather than being excluded. Does this set a precedent for Daniel Ricciardo and Renault who also broke a technical regulation in qualifying? In that case the argument from the stewards was that any technical regulation infringement must be met with exclusion. Perhaps an explanation from the stewards and FIA as to the differences between the two would be good.

    1. Nope, different regulation so different penalty. There’s no such thing as “precedent” as the stewards can change the penalty they want to apply on the fly if they desire as shown by the unsafe pit lane releases controversy. I think Alfa are lucky the FIA can’t prove deliberate cheating otherwise it could have been grounds for an exclusion and the threat of exclusion from future races.

      1. Though that then would be appealable @slowmo ;-)

        1. I believe any race exclusion can be appealed but you do still need to provide evidence to change the original ruling. The FIA don’t generally act without evidence so the vast majority of appeals are thrown out. The exceptions in the past have usually been few and far between like the infamous Ferrari barge boards debacle which was clearly motivated by a desire to have Ferrari finally break their barren title streak. Obviously prior to the FIA taking over the stewarding was a bit of a clown court with clear bias, it does feel like we’ve got a almost completely impartial system now Max Moseley is gone.

  9. Title should be Kubica keeps his only point

  10. This decision was so wrong, but predictable! The whole system for F1 sucks and needs to be restructured with people who actually can read and write plus have common sense and aren’t biased to certain teams. This penalty that AR received was so stupid and totally uncalled for with a race that had som crazy conditions. Too many rules and many really stupid ones. A venue that caters to a certain group of people who like to het here and there plus a group of three teams that basically control F1. Until that changes the racing will continue to be one-sided and boring! Need many changes with the major one being equal spending for all teams and equal payouts at the end for all teams. That would be a start for change.

    1. Arch, so, you think that it sucks that a team that brought a car that broke the technical regulations and happened to have a clutch mapping that could have been used to smooth out the power delivery when pulling away from a stationary position – something rather useful when pulling away from the grid in wet conditions – was penalised for racing an illegal car?

Comments are closed.