Rival Formula 1 Team Principal Questions FIA's Decision On Carlos Sainz

Sainz attacked Lawson to the outside of Turn 1 at the Dutch Zandvoort circuit in F1's first race back from its summer break at the end of August, with the pair making wheel-to-wheel contact and sustaining damage which dropped them to the back of the field after repairs.

The Spaniard, who has since secured a maiden podium with Williams at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, was hit with a 10-second penalty to drop him out of the top 10 in-race and two penalty points were added to his license.

While the review ultimately rescinded the penalty points, the time penalty wasn't able to be retrospectively cancelled.

With Right of Review appeals often being rejected and used primarily as a way of better understanding interpretations of regulations, Permane was asked about the impact of the Sainz decision. "I guess it will open the door to more challenges, I think," said Permane.

"But for a Right to Review, you need to supply some new, significant, and relevant evidence and I think one of the things they accepted was that Carlos didn’t have a chance to talk. So his testimony was new evidence. If you make a decision in the race, you're automatically going to have that as a chance to challenge it.

"I think what we want to see, what everyone wants to see is racing — close racing and overtaking and, of course, we were on the wrong end of it, but we don’t want cars to have to follow each other and be bound by very rigid things.

"So if it does just open that up a little bit and mean that Carlos could be alongside there, I think everyone will welcome that. We don’t want cars driving into each other, but we also don’t want a procession, do we?"

"Fundamental part of the sport"

Sauber team principal Jonathan Wheatley was a key figure in such reviews as part of his role as sporting director at Red Bull and he welcomed the decision.

"Protests, appeals, and Right of Reviews — they’re a fundamental part of the sport, and they’re very important.

"Each of them serves its own purpose. I’ve sat in more than my fair share of those in the stewards' [room] over the years, and the bar's been set very high. There’s a lot of criteria that need to be met, which is why it's unusual for them to be upheld.

"So I think what that tells you, fundamentally, is that all of those criteria — that very strict set of criteria — was met. I also echo the comments about racing. It’s absolutely paramount to the sport that the drivers are free to race, and one of our slogans is “let them race” in the team principals’ group. We’re trying to support that.

"So I think it’s good. That was a great bit of on-track action, and it feels to me like the right decision was made in the Right of Review process."

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