Steiner wants rethink of "unfair" penalty process
Haas boss Gunther Steiner has called for a rethink of Formula 1's penalty process after he criticised the decision to penalise Romain Grosjean in China.
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Grosjean and Renault's Jolyon Palmer were both give five-place grid penalties for improving their times after passing double-waved yellow flags following Antonio Giovinazzi's crash in qualifying.
The duo said they backed off, with Grosjean tweeting his data to support his argument, but the stewards ruled Palmer and Grosjean "attempted to set a meaningful laptime", which is not allowed in the rules.
In accordance with article 38.3g of the sporting regulations, this type of penalty is not susceptible to appeal.
Steiner was critical of the decision immediately after the event and was still disappointed with the call when speaking after the race.
"You cannot appeal these decisions," he said. "They should know what they did. The data that Romain tweeted speaks for itself - I don't know if they look at all of this stuff.
"It's pretty unfair and it's not what they should be doing.
"If there's a doubt, they should call somebody and get it explained, but not jump to conclusions and think 'this is what I think you did'."
Steiner said that while he is moving on from the decision, he hopes governing body the FIA reassess the way it deals with penalties.
"It's water under the bridge," he said. "I hope they learn from it and that the FIA learns from it to look into and analyse it and see what these guys did."
Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble
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