Panis 4H Imola Win Reinstated After Appeal

Panis Racing’s victory in the 4 Hours of Imola has been reinstated after “a significant and relevant new element” has led the team’s post-race penalty to be overturned.

Manuel Maldonado, Arthur Leclerc and Charles Milesi initially took victory in the third round of the championship but later lost that win as a result of a Full Course Yellow infringement for Milesi.

The stewards decision at the time argued that the Alpine Hypercar driver “speeded up too soon, anticipating the end of FCY,” thus being demoted to fifth and promoting AO by TF to first place.

However, stewards on Wednesday cited the emergence of “a significant and relevant new element” that has been presented after Panis exercised its right to review to appeal the decision.

The issued bulletin outlines that Panis presented data extracted from a data logger not included in the list of mandatory elements for control purposes, but is admissible as evidence as article 11.9.3.x of the International Sporting Code (ISC) states that “the Stewards may use any video or electronic system likely to assist them in reaching a decision.”

The presented data showed “an anticipation time that is significantly lower than the one indicated by the official data logger” and that “the same indication can be found when looking at the speed recorded by the competitor’s data logger and by the official data logger.”

This led the technical delegate to re-examine the data in depth, which showed the potential margins for small offsets, specific to Panis’ No. 65 Oreca 07 Gibson.

As a result, the stewards state that this gives “reasonable doubt” about the infringement that led to the post-race penalty.

“Due to this specific case of offsets in the data, and in relation to the nature of the alleged infringement, the stewards are unable to fully prove the alleged infringement,” the document outlines.