Even Alonso remarked the punishment was “too harsh” after the result, while Ferrari fans were understandably up in arms with the decision. But any sorrow is unlikely to match that of the driver himself after footage emerged of him learning his fate while still sat in his car post-race.
“No, it cannot be, Ricky [Adami, race engineer]. Do I deserve to be out of the points? No,” excalimed Sainz in a video posted by the official F1 Tiktok account. “No, it’s unacceptable. Tell them it is unacceptable, they need to wait until the race is finished and discuss with me.
“No, ask them please, please, please, please, please, to wait and discuss with me, clearly the penalty is not deserved, it’s too severe.”
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Sainz, 28, finished fourth and sixth in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, respectively, but a 12th-place finish in Australia means he’s now 25 points off F1’s top three. Add to the equation team-mate Charles Leclerc’s two retirements at Sakhir and Melbourne, and the campaign is already looking calamitous for the Italian manufacturer.
“Please, guys, do something. Please,” continued Sainz, whose voice can be heard crackling at the reality of the situation. “I [still cannot] believe it. We are P3 and P4. And they want to take me out of the points for that? For a Lap 1 incident? It’s so unfair, I cannot believe they’d do this to me.”
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur confirmed on Friday that the team has submitted a petition to the FIA to review the penalty in question. The Frenchman nodded to similar incidents that occurred between other drivers without punishment, accusing the stewards of being inconsistent in their decisions.
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