Carlos Sainz could potentially be reinstated to his fourth place if Ferrari successfully manage to appeal his post-race penalty at the Australian Grand Prix. The Spaniard dropped from P4 to P12 at the chequered flag, owing to a five-second time penalty that was issued after he made contact with Fernando Alonso during the second restart. Ferrari is appealing the penalty after Pierre Gasly was investigated for his race-ending contact with Esteban Ocon, but was not given a penalty by the stewards. Logan Sargeant also did not get investigated for colliding with Nyck de Vries, despite admitting to being at fault after the race. AlphaTauri lose out With De Vries out at the first corner, his teammate Yuki Tsunoda was AlphaTauri’s last hope of scoring points within the first three races. The Japanese driver made up a lot of places at the second restart, avoiding the first-corner chaos and jumping up to P5 before the final red flag came out. Due to the count back rules when a red flag is shown, it meant that the Japanese driver was shunted back outside of the points again in P12. However, with Sainz’s penalty it meant that Tsunoda was classified as P10 when he crossed the line, enabling him to earn AlphaTauri’s first point of the season. If Ferrari successfully manage to overturn Sainz’s penalty, it means the team will lose their point and with it one of the few positives from their troubled start to the season. The team has a lot of work to do if it wants to mix in with the midfield, and with Williams becoming regular challengers in the points it could make all the difference come the end of the season in Abu Dhabi.
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