About F1

Protests, appeals and the right of review

A team that thinks the rules have been broken, or that a penalty is wrong, has three ways to challenge it. A protest asks the stewards to look at something another team did. A right of review asks the stewards to look again at their own decision because of new evidence. An appeal takes a decision to a higher court.

Each one costs money, has strict deadlines, and succeeds less often than fans might expect.

Protests

A protest is a formal complaint to the stewards about another competitor, for example a car the team believes is illegal, or something that happened on track that wasn't investigated.

For something that happened during a race, a protest normally has to be lodged within 30 minutes of the provisional results being published. It costs a deposit of €20,000, which is returned if the protest is upheld.

Protests are fairly rare, because the stewards already investigate most incidents without being asked. The best-known recent case came at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where Mercedes protested the result after the safety car restart that decided the championship. The stewards rejected both protests. Mercedes then declared its intention to appeal, but dropped it a few days later.

The right of review

A right of review is the way to get the stewards to reconsider a decision. It isn't a second hearing on the same evidence. The team has to show a significant and relevant new element: something that wasn't available to the stewards when they made the decision.

The petition has to be made within 96 hours of the end of the event, and costs a €20,000 deposit. The stewards decide whether the new element exists and that decision can't be appealed.

Most petitions fail at this first step. Teams often bring new camera angles or data that the stewards say they could have produced at the time, or that doesn't add anything new. Haas tried after the 2023 United States Grand Prix, arguing that rivals had broken track limits without being penalised, and the stewards ruled the material wasn't new.

When a review is accepted, the stewards hold a fresh hearing and can change the penalty. They don't have to.

From 2026, the stewards can also reopen a decision on their own if they come across a new element themselves.

Appeals to the International Court of Appeal

The International Court of Appeal (ICA) is the FIA's highest court, based in Paris. A team or driver can appeal most stewards' decisions to it, as well as rulings from other FIA bodies such as the panel that judges cost cap breaches.

A team must tell the stewards within an hour of the decision being published that it intends to appeal, then has 96 hours to confirm it. The appeal costs a €5,000 fee plus a €20,000 deposit. Hearings usually take place weeks later, and the court can confirm, change or cancel the decision. While an appeal is pending, the penalty usually doesn't take effect, which is why a disputed race result can stay provisional for some time.

What can't be appealed

Many of the most common penalties can't be appealed at all. The regulations rule out appeals against:

  • 5-second and 10-second time penalties, drive-throughs and stop-go penalties, including ones converted to time at the end of a race,
  • grid penalties for using extra power unit parts,
  • reprimands and grid drops given during the race weekend,
  • penalties handed out in practice and qualifying.

This is deliberate. Results would never be final if every time penalty could go to court. So for the most part, the only route against an in-race penalty is a right of review, and that needs genuinely new evidence.

Appeals mostly concern disqualifications, fines, larger sanctions and disputes over technical rules.

Beyond the FIA

Very occasionally a case goes further, to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, which sits above sporting bodies across many sports. In F1 this is extremely rare.