After having shown a great performance at the season’s opening race in Melbourne with Sergio Pérez finishing seventh and Kamui Kobayashi coming eighth, the Sauber F1 Team got excluded from the race results with both cars (Sergio Pérez and Kamui Kobayashi). The FIA stewards of the meeting have found the team in breach of article 3.10.1 and 3.10.2 of the technical regulations.
With an unique and surprising one-stop strategy, Mexican rookie Sergio Perez finished an impressive seventh on debut, one place ahead of teammate Kamui Kobayashi.
But the stewards excluded the two Ferrari-powered C30 cars from the results after ruling that the rear wings were illegal.
The scrutineers discovered that the wings breached two articles of the technical regulations, where essentially the angle created too great a gap when the adjustable element was deployed.
James Key, the Sauber F1 Team’s Technical Director said: “This is a very surprising and disappointing result. It appears that there is a question over the top surface of the uppermost rear wing element, this area is not the working surface of the component and therefore relatively unimportant to its function. Certainly this has not lead to any performance advantage. We are checking the design of the parts now to better understand the situation and we intend to appeal the decision made by the stewards.”
Final race results :
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Gap | Pit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Renault | 1h29m30.259 | 2 |
| 02 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren Mercedes | +22.297 | 2 |
| 03 | Vitaly Petrov | Lotus Renault GP | +30.560 | 2 |
| 04 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | +31.772 | 3 |
| 05 | Mark Webber | Red Bull Renault | +38.171 | 3 |
| 06 | Jenson Button | McLaren Mercedes | +54.304 | 3 |
| 07 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | +85.186 | 3 |
| 08 | Sébastien Buemi | Toro Rosso Ferrari | +1 lap | 2 |
| 09 | Adrian Sutil | Force India Mercedes | +1 lap | 2 |
| 10 | Paul di Resta | Force India Mercedes | +1 lap | 2 |
| 11 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso Ferrari | +1 lap | 3 |
| 12 | Nick Heidfeld | Lotus Renault GP | +1 lap | 2 |
| 13 | Jarno Trulli | Team Lotus Renault | +2 laps | 2 |
| 14 | Jérôme d’Ambrosio | Virgin Racing Cosworth | +4 laps | 2 |
| 15 | Timo Glock | Virgin Racing Cosworth | +9 laps | 2 |
| 16 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams Cosworth | DNF | 5 |
| 17 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes GP | DNF | 1 |
| 18 | Heikki Kovalainen | Team Lotus Renault | DNF | 1 |
| 19 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes GP | DNF | 3 |
| 20 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams Cosworth | DNF | 0 |
| 21 | Sergio Perez | Sauber Ferrari | Excluded | 1 |
| 22 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber Ferrari | Excluded | 2 |