Formula 1 teams have the power to appeal penalties imposed by the stewards over a race weekend. But to do so, they must present new evidence that hasn’t yet been seen before by F1’s law enforcement.
As a result, teams have investigated every avenue of the series to uncover new, creative and clever evidence that they believe could help them attempt to overturn a racing result.
As McLaren and Red Bull prepare to take their challenge against the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix result to the court of appeal, here are five examples in the modern era of clever and creative evidence that teams have presented to attempt to plead their cases.
Let’s head to the Sky Pad
British viewers will be all too familiar with the cut to the Sky Pad that TV presenters use in coverage of a F1 race weekend. With a huge touch screen display at hand, pundits such as Karun Chandhok and Anthony Davidson analyse on-track action frame by frame to offer their opinion of the incident. Usually, it’s all for information and entertainment, and not something that could hold up in a court of law.
Clearly, that wasn’t something Ferrari thought, as it presented stills from a Sky Pad analysis of Sebastian Vettel’s 2019 Canadian Grand Prix to try and overturn a penalty he received. During the race, the German was hit with a five-second penalty for re-entering the track in an unsafe manner and forcing Lewis Hamilton off the track. In an attempt to appeal this, Ferrari presented “video analysis performed by Karun Chandhok for Sky Sports after the race” alongside telemetry, GPS and other important data to the stewards.
However, in response to the team’s request for a review of the penalty, stewards acknowledged that the footage shared “was new but not significant and relevant as this is a personal opinion by a third party”. As such, the request was rejected, the penalty still stood and Vettel took second behind Hamilton in the official race result.
Be careful what you post on social media
The season-opening 2020 Austrian Grand Prix was a momentous race for many reasons. It kicked off the season after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, saw podium robots present Lando Norris with his first trophy and marked a rough start to the season for Hamilton.
After team-mate Valtteri Bottas went off track in qualifying, the then-six-time world champion was summoned to the stewards for failing to slow for the yellow flags brought out by the Finn. Initially, they found Hamilton innocent and ruled no further action as both yellow and green flags were being displayed when the Brit passed his stricken team-mate.
However, analysis of the incident shared on social media included 360-degree camera footage from the front of Hamilton’s Mercedes. The footage wasn’t initially available to stewards as cars can only broadcast one live feed while on track, other angles are recorded and accessed after the event.
In this footage, the flashing light panels displaying the yellow flags were much less ambiguous. As such, Red Bull took it as part of its appeal to have Hamilton penalised for the infraction.
The footage, which was initially shared by the official F1 Twitter account, “clearly shows that a yellow light panel was flashing”, according to the stewards. As such, Hamilton was hit with a three-place grid penalty less than an hour before the start of the race. This promoted Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Alex Albon to second and fourth respectively, ahead of Hamilton in fifth.
It’s all a simulation
A year later, Red Bull had another trick up its sleeve when it went in search of another penalty against Hamilton. After the Briton came together with Verstappen at Copse corner in the 2021 British Grand Prix, the incident ended the Dutchman’s race in a year when he needed every point he could get to try and best Hamilton. After the crash, stewards investigated and put the blame “predominantly” on Hamilton – handing him a 10-second penalty in the race as punishment.
However, Red Bull didn’t think this went far enough as Hamilton still ultimately won the Silverstone race. It appealed the penalty, which required new evidence to present to the stewards. To do this, the team called on simulator driver Albon to recreate the lines through Copse corner using a two-year-old Red Bull car during a filming day carried out by the team.
Red Bull did this to try and prove that Hamilton’s line and speed in the corner was always going to cause the collision with Verstappen. If it could prove this, the squad believed the blame would entirely rest on Hamilton’s shoulders and he would get a harsher penalty. The stewards didn’t buy this, however, and said the additional information was not “a significant and relevant new element”. Instead, they said that the footage collected of Albon was “not ‘discovered’ but created for the purposes of submissions to support the petition for review”.
A matter of timing
While appeal evidence often relies on complex information like GPS traces, telemetry data or in-depth firsthand reports, Alpine was able to overturn a penalty with something much simpler: a clock.
In the 2022 United States Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas, Fernando Alonso was hit with a post-race 30-second penalty for allegedly running his car in an unsafe manner. The penalty came about following an appeal from rival team Haas, which stood to gain from the 30-second hit as it dropped Alonso out of the points and promoted Kevin Magnussen up to eighth.
Haas had appealed the race result after the conclusion of the grand prix, a process that must be done within 30 minutes of the classification being published. However, stewards initially acknowledged that this “was not possible” so permitted the challenge even though it came in 24 minutes late.
This didn’t sit well with Alpine, however, as its driver had missed out. So, the French squad appealed the penalty. The new evidence it provided: the FIA’s own admission that Haas had lodged its challenge too late. Alpine subsequently won and Alonso’s penalty was rescinded.
Meeting minutes
After hearing this story, you’ll think twice about what you say within earshot of an F1 team boss, as you never know what they might use to try and gain an advantage. Case in point, while trying to appeal a penalty that Norris was hit with in the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix, his McLaren team submitted minutes from a meeting of team bosses to try and fight its case.
The Briton was hit with a five-second penalty in Montreal for driving unnecessarily slowly behind the safety car, which the stewards called “unsportsmanlike driving”. As a result, he lost a points finish in Canada, which McLaren sought to overturn. To do this, the team appealed the penalty and submitted a dossier of notes taken during an FIA team managers’ meeting that took place ahead of the next round in Austria. In the meeting, McLaren argued there was an “understanding of the teams that the alleged infringement should not be penalised”.
However, during a hearing over the penalty, Williams argued there was “no general consensus” in the meeting, and the stewards further argued that “discussions, informal ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ etc” did not constitute new evidence that could overturn a ruling. As such, the appeal was thrown out, and Norris had to settle for his 13th-place finish.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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