02/04/2023
NEWS STORY
Haas has officially protested the (provisional) result of the Australian Grand Prix.
The protest relates to the Race Director's decision to base the result of the race on the order before the incident that brought about the third red flag of the day.
At the restart, Carlos Sainz clipped Fernando Alonso in Turn 1, causing the Aston Martin to spin across the track and out of third place.
Elsewhere, the two Alpines collided while Logan Sargeant ran into the back of Nyck de Fries.
As the field headed back to the pits for another restart, as a result of the various clashes Nico Hulkenberg was promoted to fourth.
However, the subsequent decision to revert to the order before the restart meant the German dropped back to eighth, though the subsequent time penalty handed to Sainz promoted him to seventh.
Nonetheless, feeling that this is wrong the American team has protested the result.
"It was wild and a bit messy at times," admitted Hulkenberg. "We'll have to look through everything that happened as there were a lot of things happening.
"I had a super start the third time around on softs and came through to P4, so it's a shame there were a few incidents and then the race was red flagged."
In a further twist to a somewhat crazy day, representatives of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation have been hauled before the stewards over the track invasion prior to the conclusion of the race.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Melbourne here.