The Aston Martin F1 team has protested the result of the Austrian Grand Prix, claiming “a number of cars” were not penalised for exceeding track limits.
Seven drivers received penalties for continuously going beyond the white lines that define the limits of the track during Sunday’s race, with race control deleting in excess of 100 laps in total as a result of drivers straying wide.
Under F1’s regulations, drivers receive a warning after exceeding track limits three times, followed by a penalty for the fourth transgression.
Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Logan Sargeant, Yuki Tsunoda, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen all received in-race or post-race five-second penalties for track limits.
However, Aston Martin believes other drivers should have been penalised during the race but slipped through the net. Its two drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, finished sixth and 10th.
After Aston Martin lodged a protest against the results, the stewards summoned a representative of the team and issued the following statement: “The Stewards, having become aware of the existence of a number of deleted laps (due to exceeding track limits) that were drawn to our attention after the receipt of the protest, have requested Race Control to perform a reconciliation of all deleted laps with penalties applied.”
A successful protest could see further penalties applied to the results of the Austrian Grand Prix.