Romain Grosjean, Haas, Monza, 2018

Grosjean’s Monza disqualification upheld by FIA Appeal Court

2018 Italian Grand Prix

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Haas has failed in its bid to overturn Romain Grosjean’s disqualification from the Italian Grand Prix.

The FIA International Court of Appeal has upheld the decision by the stewards of the race to disqualify Grosjean from sixth position because his car’s floor did not comply with the technical regulations.

In a statement the court confirmed its decision “to confirm the exclusion of Haas F1 Team’s car number eight from the 2018 Italian Grand Prix held in Monza counting towards the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship.”

“To date, only the operative part of the decision has been notified to the parties,” it added. “The full decision including grounds will be notified later on.”

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner did said: “Obviously we are disappointed not to have won our appeal.

“We simply move forward and look to the final two races of the year to continue to fight on-track, earn more points, and conclude out strongest season to date in Formula 1.”

Grosjean was excluded from the results of the race after the stewards upheld a protest from Renault concerning the floor of Grosjean’s VF-18. The floor was found not to comply with Article 3.7.1.d of the technical regulations, as clarified by TD/033-18, regarding its radius of 50mm.

Renault technical director Nick Chester said the team is “satisfied” with the decision.

“Technical regulations – especially those introduced for safety reasons – must be observed strictly,” he said. “We are satisfied with the decision and I would like to thank the court and the FIA for their work on this matter. The team is now focused on the end of the season.”

The appeal court’s members included Jan Stoviek, Laurent Anselmi, Harry Duijm, Yves Fortier and Gerard Martin.

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25 comments on “Grosjean’s Monza disqualification upheld by FIA Appeal Court”

  1. Steiner. He doth protested too much. Or not enough.

    @phylyp: Already nailed the ruling last month with a Racefans scoop.

    1. @jimmi-cynic – pretty sure this comes as no surprise to anyone here!

      Anyway, let’s wish Haas’ legal eagles and dream team driver pair a safe flight back to home base, time to put away those legal pads and break out the hacksaws ;-)

      1. C’est amusant… ;-)

  2. America, home of the free and the brave. At least they tried.

  3. Unsurprising, but the right decision nevertheless.

  4. Illegal car disqualified from Grand Prix. Hardly surprising.

  5. It was a complete waste of time and effort. When you have been warned in advance that you car was illegal and still raced it, what do you expect? Some people lack common sense.

      1. Jonathan Parkin
        2nd November 2018, 13:18

        But aren’t the cars checked before the race to see if they conform to the rules. In this case evidently not since the car wouldn’t have been allowed to race

        1. The scrutineers don’t check each and every aspect of the technical regs, because doing so for 20 cars would take an extremely long amount of time, and more scrutineering staff than are present at a race weekend.

          They do randomly check cars in detail, and – according to Charlie Whiting – depend on competitors keeping tabs on one another, and reporting their suspicions to the FIA for them to look at.

          Even something like Ferrari’s halo-mounted mirrors would typically result in a competitor (e.g. Merc) raising a query to the FIA asking for a clarification if its legal (F1’s pseudo-politeness! They don’t say “I think those mirrors are illegal”, they instead politely ask “Are those mirrors legal? Asking for a friend”).

        2. Also, in this case, the FIA had already warned Haas (and a few other teams, IIRC) about their floor violation, and gave them two or so races to fix the issue. Haas sent a letter to the FIA requesting an extension, but received no acknowledgement or reply. So, in a fit of optimism (using children’s logic of “they didn’t say I can’t use it for the third race, so I can use it for the third race”), they turned up at the third race with an unmodified floor, and Renault tattled on them to the FIA.

          This is why many fans (myself included) are unsympathetic – the FIA told them it was a violation, gave them time to fix it, yet Haas pushed their luck beyond it. When caught out on it, they tried to toss around some “gentleman’s agreement” mumbo-jumbo.

          1. Jonathan Parkin
            2nd November 2018, 17:40

            What happens after the race has finished? I presume every competitor is scrutinized then?

  6. It’s not Mercedes, what did they expect?

  7. What a waste of time and effort to even question the decision. You ran an illegal car and you got disqualified for it. Did Steiner expect candy in return for his actions?

    Maybe Haas needs to outsource Steiner’s job as well.

  8. The way Steiner usually faults F1 at every opportune moment because of his own team’s mistake or his drivers’ mistakes is appalling. Did he expect this to go his way really? At least he has no one to blame this time but himself and his team.

  9. An absolute waste of time and effort… it’d have been quite a travesty if the DQ was overturned.

  10. in the old days (90s) they would of been given a bigger penalty for arguing the point.

    1. Thank God for that then. What sort of society would we be living in if a member was denied the right to appeal?

      1. it used to be that if it was found you were wasting the courts time they would give you a bigger penalty.

        Eddie Irvine rings a bell at brazil? i am sure someone will correct me if my memory is letting me down

        1. q85, it was indeed the case that Irvine’s penalty for causing a major pile up at the 1994 Brazilian GP was increased from a one race ban to a three race ban.

          However, that might have also been because some of the drivers he took out from that race, such as Jos Verstappen, submitted statements to the FIA at the appeal hearing that seemed to be pushing for a harsher penalty to be applied to Irvine. Given that Irvine had been winding up a lot of rival drivers and teams up when he entered the sport, there were probably quite a few other drivers and teams who pressed the FIA to increase the ban as an act of revenge.

  11. Well, then… Not a lot of sympathy there… I had expected some Haas-fans to retaliate… ;-)
    But some good explanatory comments from Philip & Co…

    1. I had expected some Haas-fans to retaliate… ;-)

      Sorry to disappoint you then. I am a Haas fan, but in this case I think that they were simply wrong, got the penalty they deserved, and should have accepted that and moved on.

      1. Hi Bob C. – No worries… you certainly didn’t disappoint me. In fact a little bit of fresh air.

  12. F1 should just keep making arbitrary rule changes that are near impossible for small teams to live up to.
    Then they should yap endlessly about their plans to make the sport more competitive for small teams.

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