The Australian GP stewards have chosen to "dismiss" the protest lodged by the Haas Formula 1 team against the results of the Melbourne race. The Haas team, who faced the prospect of a bigger points haul, decided to protest the results of the race due to the confusion surrounding the race restart procedure, following a final red flag. However, the stewards have chosen to "dismiss" their protest, meaning the results of the 2023 Australian GP will stand. The stewards decision noted that Haas had specifically contested how the grid was determined for the final race restart, which had been decided by reusing the grid order for the lap 57 restart.
Haas pointed out that when determining the grid order for a restart, Article 57.3 of the Sporting Regulations states: “In all cases the order will be taken at the last point at which it was possible to determine the position of all cars…” In this instance, Haas believed that the final grid order for the lap 58 restart should have been determined by 'Safety Car 2 line', which is located on the approach to Turn 1. Hulkenberg appeared have made a position by this point at the lap 57 restart, hence Haas' desire to question the order and potentially gain a further position. Using the SC2 line for determining grids has been done previously, with the stewards using it to decide the restart order at last year's British Grand Prix, following Guanyu Zhou's dramatic lap one crash. The stewards, after discussing with the Race Director, highlighted that the GPS data was not reliable enough to determine the order from the SC2 line, therefore went back to the "last point at which it was possible " to finalise the order of the field, which was the grid for the lap 57 restart. The stewards noted that time constraints and the requirements to make a swift call also prompted the decision to use the lap 57 grid order for the final restart on lap 58, and therefore dismissed Haas' protest.
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