Red Bull loses Ricciardo appeal

Red Bull Racing’s presentation to the International Court of Appeal has failed and Daniel Ricciardo’s disqualification from the Australian Grand Prix for his car exceeding the maximum fuel flow rate will stand.

The FIA has released a brief statement, which can be read below, and says full details will be published later this week.

At this stage there appears to be no further sanction for Ricciardo or Red Bull.

This result was expected and while Red Bull’s defence had merit, it was always undermined by the fact that the team was warned by FIA stewards during the race that Daniel’s car was in breach of the regulations. When you’re given an opportunity to right a perceived wrong by the referee and you ignore it you can’t really expect them to pretend it didn’t happen.

Red Bull’s statement can be read below, after the the FIA press release.

[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]

International Court of Appeal – Monday 14 April 2014

• The following hearing of the International Court of Appeal took place in Paris on Monday 14 April 2014.

Tue 15.04.14, 10:10AM

Appeal lodged by the Österreichischer Automobil-Motorrad und Touring Club – Oberste Nationale Sportkommission für den Motorsport (ÖAMTC-OSK) on behalf of its licence-holder Infiniti Red Bull Racing against the decision N°56 dated 16 March 2014 of the FIA Stewards of the 2014 Australian Grand Prix counting towards the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship

On 16 March 2014 the panel of the stewards decided to exclude car N°3 (driver Daniel Ricciardo) from the results of the race as it was found to be not in compliance with the Technical Regulations (the Technical Delegate reported to the Stewards that car N°3 exceeded the required fuel mass flow of 100kg/h).

On 20 March 2014, the Österreichischer Automobil-Motorrad und Touring Club – Oberste Nationale Sportkommission für den Motorsport (ÖAMTC-OSK) on behalf of its licence-holder, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, decided to appeal this decision before the International Court of Appeal

Decision of the International Court of Appeal

The Court, after having heard the parties and examined their submissions, decided to uphold the Decision N°56 of the Stewards by which they decided to exclude Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s car N°3 from the results of the 2014 Australian Grand Prix.

The International Court of Appeal was presided over by Mr Harry DUIJM (Netherlands), and included Mr Rui BOTICA SANTOS (Portugal), Mr Philippe NARMINO (Monaco), Mr Antonio RIGOZZI (Switzerland) and Mr Jan STOVICEK (Czech Republic).

The full decision will be available on the website by the end of the week.

Red Bull Racing team statement

Tuesday 15 April 2014

Infiniti Red Bull Racing accepts the ruling of the International Court of Appeal today. We are of course disappointed by the outcome and would not have appealed if we didn’t think we had a very strong case. We always believed we adhered to the technical regulations throughout the 2014 Australian Grand Prix. We are sorry for Daniel (Ricciardo) that he will not be awarded the 18 points from the event, which we think he deserved. We will continue to work very hard to amass as many points as possible for the team, Daniel and Sebastian (Vettel) throughout the season.

We will now move on from this and concentrate on this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix.