Mattia Binotto says Scuderia Ferrari will be appealing the stewards’ decision to penalise Sebastian Vettel during Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, with the five-second penalty handing the race victory instead to Mercedes AMG Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton.
Vettel had led the race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for much of the afternoon, with only a few laps during the pit stop cycle being led by either Hamilton or Charles Leclerc, but a mistake on lap forty-eight that saw the German run across the grass at turn three and re-join at turn four led to the stewards’ handing him the penalty.
The stewards’ deemed that Vettel had re-joined the track in an unsafe manner, with the German almost pushing Hamilton into the concrete wall on the exit of the turn, but Binotto, the team principal at Ferrari, felt that the five-second time penalty was unjustified and as a result they will be appealing the decision.
“At the moment, we, as a team, are naturally disappointed, but most of all our thoughts are with Sebastian and the spectators,” said Binotto. “As for Seb, I don’t think he could have done things differently, which is why we have decided to appeal the Stewards’ decision.”
Binotto was pleased to see a more competitive weekend for Ferrari in Canada, with Vettel and Leclerc both standing on the podium on Sunday, and the performance can boost the teams confidence and moral heading into the remainder of the season.
“We leave Canada knowing that today, as indeed over the whole weekend, we proved we were competitive and that fact has been a confidence booster for the whole team,” commented Binotto.
