PARIS: Formula One team Red Bull’s appeal against Daniel Ricciardo’s disqualification from the Australian Grand Prix has been rejected by the International Court of Appeal, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) said on Tuesday.
Australian Ricciardo finished second in his home race last month, his debut for the world champions, but was disqualified hours later when stewards ruled his car had breached new fuel flow regulations.
No further sanction against Red Bull was announced.
The FIA added that details of the decision would be published by the end of the week.
“Infiniti Red Bull Racing accepts the ruling of the International Court of Appeal,” Red Bull said in a statement.
“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 will continue to work very hard to amass as many points as possible for the team, Daniel and Sebastian (Vettel) throughout the season.”
The ruling means that Ricciardo remains 10th in the drivers’ standings on 12 points, having lost 18 points as result of the disqualification, and Red Bull stay fourth in the team standings.
The hearing took place at the FIA headquarters in Paris on Monday with representatives from the federation and Red Bull arguing their case for almost six hours.
Rival teams Mercedes, the championship leaders who have won all three races so far this year, McLaren, Lotus, Williams and Force India also had representatives at the hearing in front of a five-judge panel.
The case was seen as a critical test of the regulations accompanying the V6 turbo engines and energy recovery systems, with Red Bull arguing the sensors cannot be trusted, a version the FIA and other teams dispute.
Red Bull, instead, used their own method of measurement, in breach of an FIA technical directive.
Mercedes had come down hard on Red Bull, asking the judges to “impose a further sanction that is to be suspended until the end of the season” to prevent them from breaching the rules again.
Red Bull had also argued that technical directives are “only opinions”, not regulations, while FIA and Mercedes said that according to the rule book, “it is the duty of the competitor to satisfy the technical delegate”. (Reuters)
