Following a protest from Aston Martin, the FIA have announced that they are levying a further 12 time penalties on drivers after the Austrian Grand Prix.
As Max Verstappen took the chequered flag for the fifth consecutive time in 2023 – his seventh of the season – murmurings were growing over a host of further possible penalties for multiple drivers regarding track limit violations.
Aston Martin even went as far as to protest the race result, with their claim revolving around the fact that "a number of cars were not penalised for a breach of Article 33.3 [the article that deals with track limits] of the Sporting Regulations".
The stewards had noted that "a number of deleted laps were drawn to our attention after the receipt of the protest". Aston Martin subsequently requested that Race Control "perform a reconciliation of all deleted laps with penalties applied".
Heartbreak for Sainz
It was revealed after the chequered flag that Race Control had to deal with more than 100 deleted laps during the grand prix.
And after further deliberation, the FIA have ruled that a number of drivers went under-punished, the most significant being Carlos Sainz – whose 10 second penalty for a fifth track limits violation drops him from fourth to sixth behind Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso.