Motorsport Australia releases Allen appeal findings

Motorsport Australia has released the full findings from the appeal case triggered by Kai Allen's tyre breach at last month's Bosch Power Tools Perth Super 440.

A breach was established on the #26 Penrite Racing Ford Mustang regarding minimum tyre pressure in Race 25, with Allen finishing fifth.

An appeal was later dismissed on the eve of the Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440, with Allen keeping his position. A three-person panel was convened to hear the appeal, comprising Judge Jonathan Forbes, Steven Chopping and Alexis Schoeb.

Motorsport Australia released the findings on Friday.

Allen heads to the AirTouch 500 at The Bend in fifth overall, and will share his Ford with veteran Tim Slade. Tickets for the event are on sale now.

The decision findings are as follows:

Introduction

1. V8 Supercars Australia Pty Ltd (the appellant) appeals against Steward’s Decision 120, Document No 33, by which the stewards imposed no penalty for a breach of rule D17.1.18 of the 2026 Supercars operational manual by Car 26 during Race 25 at the Bosch Power Tools Perth Super440 on 2 August 2026.

2. Car 26 was entered by Grove Racing Pty Ltd (the affected party).

3. Prior to the hearing of the appeal, the court ruled upon a number of preliminary issues, including that Grove Racing had standing in the appeal as an affected party and that each of the parties be granted leave (if necessary) to be represented by legal counsel. The Court also gave directions for the filing of written submissions and the filing of evidence upon which a party might seek to rely (subject to rulings on admissibility). The Court was provided all relevant documents in the form of a Court Book (CB).

4. The substantive appeal was heard by the Court on 17 August 2026. The appellant was represented by Ben Ihle KC. Grove Racing was represented by David Grace KC. Motorsport Australia was represented by Matthew Selley. Each of the parties relied upon their written submissions and developed them orally.

5. After hearing all parties and having taken their written submissions and relevant evidence into account, the Court determined that the appeal should be dismissed. The following reasons explain that decision.

Background and Agreed Facts

6. Rule D17.1.18 of the 2026 Supercars Operations Manual prescribes a minimum permitted control tyre pressure of 16 psi whenever a car is on the circuit during a session. Rule D17.1.19 provides that tyre pressure during a session is that recorded or viewed by the control tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS).

7. All four tyres on Car 26 were inflated to approximately 16.32 psi when it left the pit garage to begin the reconnaissance lap. When the car arrived at the grid following that lap, the four tyres were recorded at approximately 17 psi. Car 26 then remained stationary on the grid for an extended period before commencement of the formation lap.

8. During that stationary period, the pressure in the right front and rear tyres reduced. When Car 26 moved from the grid, the TPMS recorded the front-right tyre at 15.959 psi and the rear-right tyre at 15.786 psi. Those readings were below the prescribed minimum and established the contravention of Rule D17.1.18.

9. The pressures subsequently rose above 16 psi shortly after the commencement of the formation lap. No tyre was recorded below the prescribed minimum after the race itself commenced.

10. There was some dispute concerning the precise duration of the non-compliance. The Stewards said that the front-right and rear-right tyre pressures measured above 16 psi within five and 17 seconds respectively of Car 26 commencing the formation lap. Grove Racing sought to rely upon a graphical representation of the TPMS telemetry which it said depicted data points one second apart and demonstrated intermittent, rather than continuous, readings below 16 psi.

11. The appellant submitted that the original telemetry before the stewards comprised data points, not necessarily elapsed seconds, and therefore did not establish how long the tyres had been below the minimum before Car 26 moved. Relying on evidence from Perry Kapper, the V8 Supercars Category technical manager, the appellant contended that while Car 26 was stationary the right-rear tyre had recorded 15.959 psi continuously for 60.5 seconds, subject to a momentary signal dropout, and that readings fluctuated below the threshold until 57.8 seconds into the formation lap.

12. Nonetheless it is common ground that the period of underinflation was limited, the pressures rose following commencement of the formation lap, and that the tyres were compliant before the race itself commenced.

13. The stewards of the event (Bradley Tubb, Peter Davis and Steve Lisk) conducted a hearing after receiving a report from the Deputy Race Director and Supercars Technical. The stewards summoned and heard from the Supercars Technical manager and the Authorised team representative and engineer for Grove Racing. The hearing occurred at or about 15:20.

14. The offence of “Breach of Minimum Tyre Pressure” is a sporting offence. It is not a technical offence for which there is a mandatory penalty. Pursuant to the 2026 Recommended Penalties issued to the stewards at the start of the season, the recommended penalty for the sporting offence of “Breach of Minimum Tyre Pressure” is disqualification where it occurs in a qualifying session or a race.

15. It is common ground that V8 Supercars represented to the stewards at the hearing that the appropriate penalty for the infringement was disqualification and that they should exercise their discretion accordingly.

The Stewards’ decision

16. At 23:37 on Sunday 2 August 2026 the stewards published reasons for their decision.

17. The stewards found that by the terms of Rules D17.1.18 and D17.1.19, the readings from the TPMS stood as proof of tyre pressures and that the breaches had been proven as alleged.

18. The stewards then continued, introducing the balance of their reasons with the words: “Although the Rules operate strictly, there are mitigating circumstances.”Relevantly, in reaching their decision, the stewards made the following findings and observations: (a) All of car 26’s tyres were inflated to a pressure of greater than 16 psi when the car left the garage; (b) The Team has taken reasonable action by inflating the tyres to 16.32psi to accommodate cooling while the car was stationary on the grid; (c) While on the grid the right tyres were in the shade, whereas the left tyres (which read at least 17.6 psi) were in the sun; (d) The fall in temperature of the right rear tyre did not correspond with the fall in pressure while on the grid, suggesting another variable, such as a slow leak; (e) The pressures on the right side were under the minimum pressure by a small margin, especially in light of the acknowledged TPMS accuracy; (f) Once on the grid the Team were, by the Rules, prohibited from testing or adjusting tyre pressures and therefore they could not remedy the underinflation.

19. The stewards had no hesitation in finding that Supercars had proved the breach. However, “having regard to all the circumstances of the case” the stewards elected to take no further action in relation to the contravention and decided not to impose any penalty.

Grounds of appeal

20. The appellant does not challenge the finding that Grove contravened Rule D17.1.18. Nor does Grove seek to disturb that finding. The appeal concerns only the decision by the stewards to impose no penalty.

21. The appellant accepts that the steward’s decision involves the exercise of discretion, but argued that the process by which the stewards reached their decision and the decision itself were affected by legal error.

22. The appellant submitted that the appeal should be considered under Australian law and that the issue of legal error should be determined in the context of the House v The King line of authority. That is, a decision will be tainted by error where the decision-maker makes a material mistake of fact or law, relies upon irrelevant considerations or fails to take into account material relevant considerations. V8 Supercars submits that identification of even one material error in the reasoning process is enough to impugn the stewards’ decision and to reopen the discretion to be determined by the Court afresh.

23. The appellant contends that written reasons for stewards’ decision reveals that they fell into error in three respects namely: (1) they mistook the facts; (2) they gave weight to irrelevant considerations; and (3) on the face of the record, they failed to take into account a mandatory relevant consideration, namely the recommended penalties contained in table of Recommended Penalties which forms part of the Supercars Operations Manual 2026 (Recommended Penalties).

24. We now turn to those contentions and the parties’ submissions in more detail.

V8 Supercars

25. First, the appellant submitted that the Recommended Penalties were a mandatory relevant consideration and that the stewards had failed to take that matter into account.

26. The published reasons of the stewards make no express reference to the Recommended Penalties document or the recommended penalty for the sporting offence of “Breach of Minimum Tyre Pressure”. The notes taken by the chairman of the stewards (Mr Tubb) also contain no reference to consideration of the minimum penalties. The appellant submits that the absence of any reference to those matters supports a necessary inference that the stewards failed to have regard to this mandatory relevant consideration. Mr Ihle submitted that the absence of reference to the recommended penalties in the written reasons or the steward’s notes “speaks volumes”.

27. The appellant submitted that consistency of decision-making is important for competitors and officials alike. V8 Supercars submit that there must be a principled justification for the stewards to move away from the recommended penalty, which serves as a starting point. The appellant submits that in circumstances where recommended penalties have been published and the stewards have decided to depart from the recommendation, it is incumbent upon the stewards to explain their pathway of reasoning for doing so. Here, the reasons are silent.

28. Supercars acknowledged that its representative had sought disqualification before the Stewards and that this recommendation accorded with the Recommended Penalties. It nevertheless distinguished between a matter being mentioned in a hearing and the Stewards duty to actually have regard to it in the synthesis leading to their decision.

29. Secondly, Supercars submitted that the possibility of Grove Racing deriving a sporting advantage was a matter to which the stewards should have had explicit regard. Counsel for the appellant confined his submission to the failure to consider the issue, rather than contending that the evidence before the stewards actually established such an advantage was obtained. But the appellant says that the reasons are conspicuously silent about this issue, thereby giving rise to the inference that potential sporting advantage was not considered at all. It was submitted that that failure also amounts to legal error.

30. Thirdly, insofar as it was submitted that the stewards relied upon incorrect facts or misunderstood the facts, the appellant argued that following findings lacked any probative evidentiary basis: • that the front right and rear right tyre pressures both measured above 16 psi within five and 17 seconds, respectively, of the car leaving the grid on the formation lap; • that a slow leak may have been in play; • that the team had taken reasonable action to inflate the tires to 16.32 psi to accommodate cooling while the car was stationary on the grid; and • that the Team had no power to remedy the low pressures once they were discovered.

31. The appellant submits that there was no proper factual basis for these findings and/or that they were irrelevant considerations. Further, the appellant submitted that they were not truly mitigating circumstances which could rationally justify moving from the recommended penalty of disqualification to no penalty. The appellant reminded the Court that the absence of aggravating circumstances does not amount to mitigation.

32. Fourthly, Supercars sought to rely on earlier stewards’ decisions concerning tyre- pressure infringements as demonstrating a consistent practice of imposing meaningful sporting penalties. The appellant conceded that those decisions were not binding precedents but submitted that they informed consistency, equal treatment and the proper operation of the Recommended Penalties regime. It was submitted that those decisions informed competitors about likely regulatory treatment and demonstrated that comparatively small departures had previously attracted significant sporting sanctions.

Grove Racing

33. Mr Grace, on behalf of Grove Racing, submitted that the appeal impermissibly subjected an operational sporting decision to legalistic scrutiny. He emphasised that Stewards conducted expedited and relatively informal hearings, are not bound by the rules of evidence, and may inform themselves as they consider appropriate. Their decisions are made by experienced sporting officials under substantial time pressures and should not be examined as though they were judgments delivered by courts of law.

34. Grove Racing dismissed the suggestion that the stewards had overlooked the Recommended Penalties as untenable. Mr Grace noted V8 Supercars’ concession that their representative had sought disqualification at the hearing and that one member of stewards panel had presided over other cases involving tyre inflation infringements. Moreover, Grove submitted that the language of the stewards’ reasons including their express consideration of mitigation showed engagement with the recommended penalties, which itself requires any penalty to be proportionate.

35. Grove rejected the proposition that the recommended penalty of disqualification constituted a presumptive starting point from which it bore an onus to establish mitigation. Mr Grace submitted that the Stewards’ discretion was at large, subject to the Rules, and that the recommended penalty entered the evaluation as one relevant consideration rather than as a default outcome.

36. Grove argued that the factors taken into account by the stewards as “mitigating” were rational and properly informative of the ultimate question, namely what result was just and proportionate in the particular circumstances. Grove submitted that the underinflation was very small, there was no safety risk and an absence of any proven sporting advantage. Taken in context it was open to the stewards, as experts, to have assessed the proportionality of the recommended penalty as excessive.

37. It was also submitted that there was no finding of a “small leak” and that cannot be relied upon as an error of fact. Read properly, the reference to a small leak was no more than speculation on the part of the stewards as a possible explanation for what could not otherwise be explained. In terms of the decision making it was postulation, not a finding.

38. Finally, Grove Racing accepted that different decision makers could reach different decisions on the same or similar facts and that this was an ordinary consequence of a discretionary power. Mr Grace submitted that it would be wrong to displace the stewards decision in this case merely because another panel might have assessed the facts differently.

Motorsport Australia

39. Mr Selley described Motorsport Australia’s role as assisting the Court on questions of principle rather than acting as a substantive contradictor, because V8 Supercars and Grove were independently represented and capable of advancing the competing factual positions.

40. Motorsport Australia agreed with Grove that to succeed with its appeal V8 Supercars had to demonstrate error by the stewards in the exercise of their discretion. It submitted that, although the Court might derive assistance from House v The King, the Court is a sporting tribunal established by contractual rules rather than a court of law and it is not technically bound by the principles governing civil appeals. Motorsport Australia also referred to international motorsport decisions which consistently employed “proportionality” as the governing criterion for appellate intervention,

41. Motorsport Australia submitted that some weight should be attached to the Supercars recommended penalties and to previous decisions of stewards in similar cases. These matters are important in informing decision-making to ensure that the approach of stewards reflects the fairness, consistency and parity expected by competitors. That said, Motorsport Australia agreed that previous decisions are not binding and cautioned that disqualification in other cases should not be taken as endorsing the Recommended Penalties as mandatory.

42. Mr Selley submitted that there was some force in the argument that a “no penalty” outcome requires exceptional circumstances where the recommended penalty is disqualification. He did not submit that the present circumstances were or were not exceptional but said it would be enough if the stewards considered them to be so.

43. Motorsport Australia accepted that the stewards perhaps should not have treated the TPMS margin of error as a mitigating circumstance and expressed some reservation about whether the inability of Grove Racing to remedy the underinflation was truly mitigating, given it was a rule which applied to all. However, Motorsport Australia rejected Supercar’s argument that the court should infer the recommended penalties were not considered.

44. Motorsport Australia endorsed Grove Racing’s comments about the nature of the stewards’ role, the expertise of those appointed to that office and the difficult operational and time constraints which frame and contextualise their decision making.

CONSIDERATION

Nature of the court’s role

45. Where penalty is appealed, it is the role of the Court to correct error, if the penalty appealed against is unacceptably disproportionate to the offence or if it manifests in injustice.

46. The framework for assessing error as enunciated in the established House v The King line of cases is informative but not binding on this Court. The principles in House usefully identify the familiar ways in which a discretionary judgment may miscarry, but one must be careful not to blindly transplant these principles into a sporting environment. While mistaking material facts, considering irrelevant matters, failing to consider relevant matters and similar mistakes can produce error in decision making, the identification of what is or is not relevant or material should be framed with deference to those who are appointed for their specialist knowledge, expertise and experience.

47. The Rules entrust primary responsibility for penalty to stewards because of their specialist knowledge and experience. Their decisions are made in a sporting not a judicial environment. As Grove Racing and Motorsport Australia submitted, hearings may be convened urgently, conducted with limited formality and resolved while an event remains operationally active. Matters before the stewards can be technically complex, hotly contested by competitors and hearings often take place in an imperfect environment. Stewards are not required to observe judicial rules of evidence or procedure, although they must of course ensure procedural fairness.

48. All that being said, the latitude extended to stewards does not put them beyond the purview of the appeal court. The Court should be cautious in judging the conduct of stewards, but not afraid to intervene where that is warranted.

The nature of discretion

49. No party in these proceedings contests the proposition that the steward’s decision involved an exercise of discretion.

50. Where discretion is conferred upon a decision-maker, there is a legal presumption that the discretion must be exercised reasonably. It is well-established that the requirement to exercise a power reasonably and rationally is an implied condition of the conferral of the power itself.

51. The field of discretional freedom is wide but not boundless. What constitutes a reasonable and lawful exercise of discretion will be determined by the laws or rules which confer the discretion and the contractual or regulatory framework within which that discretion is to be exercised. Where conditions are imposed upon the exercise of a discretion, the failure to observe those conditions may constitute legal error. Stewards are not free to venture outside the boundaries of the power entrusted in them.

Reasons

52. The stewards are under no obligation to provide written reasons for their decisions. That is consistent with the sporting environment in which the decisions are made. However, as the parties in this appeal observed, where stewards choose to provide written reasons, those reasons are open to scrutiny.

53. The face of the reasons reveal that they were published just before midnight on a Sunday night after the last day of a weekend race meeting in Perth. They were produced within hours of the stewards hearing. The reasons were not prepared for any purpose other than to explain, as best the stewards could at the time, why they reached the decision they did. The reasons do not make reference to every submission or argument that was made in the hearing or every piece of evidence that was available for consideration.

54. As the High Court cautioned in Minister for Immigration & Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang (1996) 185 CLR 259 at 272 (Brennan CJ, Toohey, McHugh and Gummow JJ), reasons of an administrative nature should not be read “with an eye keenly attuned to the perception of error”.

55. A statement of reasons must be read fairly and not in an unduly critical manner. Furthermore, a statement of reasons must be read in light of the content of the obligation pursuant to which it was prepared.

56. The appellant bears the onus of establishing that there was legal error in the decision-making process. Absent a transcript or other contemporaneous record or evidence from the participants in the hearing, the stewards reasons are the window through which the decision-making process is to be reviewed. The appellant must be able to show that the reasons reveal some kind of significant error which justifies setting aside the original decision.

The Recommended Penalty

57. The recommended penalties have been developed and form an important element of the contractual pact between competitors and event organisers. They form part of the regulatory standards which govern competition and underpin the expectation of where a penalty might fall for a given offence or infringement.

58. However, the Introduction and Guiding Principles of the Recommended Penalties are instructive and provide important context to their role in the decision-making process.

59. The Introduction to the document notes that the Recommended Penalties are provided to the Race Director, Deputy Race Director, Driving Standards Adviser and the stewards of the event as a guide to the level of penalty that may be applied for various breaches of the rules. It goes on to note that: “Subject to an appeal, the Stewards are the authority to determine any Penalty to be applied in accordance with the Rules, and in doing so will consider this document with the recommendations of the RD, DRD, DSA and/or GMM as appropriate to the circumstances.”

60. The introduction to the Recommended Penalties document also informs the stewards discretion in other ways, noting for example that: • any penalty should be proportionate with the breach – that is, the extent to which a rule is breached may be a factor in determining an adjustment (up or down) of the penalties recommended; and • in applying a penalty which varies from the recommended, consideration may be given to safety implications, performance gains and whether it is a driver or team -related breach.

61. The Guiding Principles of the Recommended Penalties also provide relevant context. While noting, among other things, that penalties need to be meaningful, need to affect change or modify behaviour and need to be easily understood and communicated, the Supercars Commission has universally endorsed the principle that: “the Stewards have the overriding authority to increase or decrease any of the document’s recommended penalties at their discretion.”

62. By reason of these statements and principles the Court accepts that the recommended penalty for an offence as specified in the Rules and any recommendation given to the stewards by the RD, DRD, DSA and/or GMM are mandatory relevant considerations which must form part of the exercise of power. A failure to consider the recommended penalty at all would lead to legal error.

63. The requirement to “consider” the Recommended Penalties document means at the very least that the stewards must be aware of the document, its Guiding Principles and the penalty assigned to the offence in question. The requirement for the stewards to consider the recommendations of the RD, DRD, DSA and/or GMM means that those recommendations must be listened to and weighed as an element in the decision-making process. The stewards must “really and genuinely”10 give those matters consideration if they are to discharge their decision-making in a lawful fashion.

64. For the following reasons, the court does not accept the submission that the stewards in the present case failed to take the V8 supercars recommended penalties into account. We do not accept that the failure to mention the recommended penalties in the written reasons gives rise to an inference that those penalties were not considered. (a) The panel of stewards at the Perth event are highly experienced and regularly attend Supercars events. Their expert knowledge is what qualified them for appointment. At this level of motorsport, it is almost unfathomable that they would not be aware of the rules which frame their officiating. (b) Also, the stewards at the Perth event have officiated at other events and have referred to the recommended penalties in previous decisions in similar circumstances. The stewards can be assumed to have constructive knowledge of the penalties which have been applied in similar cases. (c) Relatedly, the recommended penalties should be taken to be so notorious as to go without saying. It might have been preferable if the stewards had expressly referred to the recommended penalties, but in our view that was not a necessary exercise given the audience for the reasons. (d) The V8 Supercars technical director made representations to the stewards that the penalty of disqualification should apply, consistent with the recommended penalty in the rules. It would be artificial to infer that the stewards had no regard to a recommended penalty which the appellant asked them to impose. (e) Further, the reasons principally address issues of “mitigation”, giving rise to the clear inference that the stewards were working from a base and giving consideration to reasons why the assumed recommended penalty may or may not be appropriate in the circumstances.

65. It is well-established in administrative law 11 that a decision-maker can, quite properly, consider a matter by thinking about it (including the appropriate weight to attribute to it) without making any express findings in its reasons.

66. The failure to refer to a matter in reasons may be because the decision-maker did not consider that matter to be material. An alternative and perfectly rational explanation is that the relevant consideration was so obvious as to go without saying and that express reference to it in the reasons is simply unnecessary. In our view the alleged “failure” to expressly mention the Rules and the recommended penalty is rationally explicable. In our view the Rules, the recommended penalties and the participants’ familiarity of them was so notorious as to “go without saying”. The reasons have been prepared not as a legal judgment to inform the public at large, but as a document to inform a specific cohort of experienced and knowledgeable competitors and officials. Having regard to the specialist expertise of the stewards, it can be fairly and reasonably assumed that they were not blind to the rules and recommended penalties when exercising their discretion.

Mistaken facts or irrelevant considerations?

67. In our view the asserted factual errors are misplaced.

68. The finding of a possible “slow leak” was not erroneous, because no such finding was made. No leak was established. Read fairly, the stewards reasons referred to this as one possible, albeit speculative, explanation for an observed discrepancy. Grove Racing submitted that the stewards were doing no more than to postulate reasons for the unexpected result. The reference to the “slow leak” was poorly expressed and should not have been given mitigating weight, but we are not satisfied that it materially affected the outcome.

69. Although the steward reference to some tolerance in the TPMS reading is legitimately open to criticism in the face of Rule C4.7.2 (which leaves no room for additional tolerance), it does not follow that the extent of departure from the minimum requirement of 16 psi is irrelevant to penalty. The relatively small departure is a relevant matter which rationally informed the steward’s assessment of the gravity of the offence. The Recommended Penalties document itself mandates the stewards taking the extent of the breach into account.

70. V8 Supercars argued that the stewards incorrectly treated as relevant the fact that the team had inflated the tyres to 16.32 psi before the car left the garage. The appellant also sought to impugn the stewards’ finding that the team had acted reasonably in doing so. The attack on these findings was that Grove Racing had misjudged its strategy, conduct which did not warrant mitigating weight. There is some force in this argument.

71. However, we do not find that the stewards fell into legal error by turning their mind to these facts. The stewards were entitled to distinguish between deliberate underinflation and a flawed but failed attempt to maintain compliance. Setting the tyres above the prescribed minimum did not excuse the contravention, but the apparent absence of intentional non-compliance was relevant to the character and proportionality of any sanction.

72. There was then the stewards finding that the period of non-compliance was between 5 and 17 seconds based on the telemetry data before them. Grove Racing produced evidence which sought to corroborate that finding. As mentioned earlier, the statement from Mr Kapper cast some doubt on that finding but that was not evidence which was before stewards at the time. In our view, the stewards finding was reasonably open on the evidence available to them and it was relevant to the gravity of the offence and the proportionality of any penalty.

73. There was some criticism that the potential for sporting advantage was not properly considered by the stewards. We accept that the recommended penalties expressly identify performance gain as a consideration.

74. The evidentiary position before the stewards is important. During the appeal hearing, there was some argument about whether sporting advantage was a subject of debate before stewards. Mr Kapper said that it had been, although Grove Racing disputed that assertion. There is no transcript of the stewards hearing and Mr Kapper’s written statement did not record the content of any such discussion.

75. The court cannot reach any conclusion about whether sporting advantage was raised in the hearing before the stewards. What is clear is that no actual or quantified advantage was proven to the stewards or to this Court. In the circumstances, the failure by the stewards to mention sporting advantage in the reasons is rationally explicable in two ways. Either, it was not raised. Alternatively, based on the evidence it was not regarded as material in relation to penalty.

Previous decisions

76. Given the nature of our discussion about the role of stewards and discretion in their decision-making, this issue can be dealt with briefly.

77. Earlier tyre pressure decisions may be relevant to consistency but they are not binding precedents. They inform competitors about likely regulatory treatment. Published decisions of stewards cannot be disregarded, but ultimately their weight in informing later decisions is a matter for the stewards. Sporting penalties are fact-specific and it will be rare for any two sets of circumstances to be identical. There will always be differences in the extent and duration of the infringement, safety implications, potential for sporting advantage, intent and context. The Recommended Penalties document expressly anticipates that these are the sorts of matters which the stewards should take into account.

78. This Court does not consider it necessary or helpful to dissect the earlier decisions upon which V8 Supercars relies. However, it is noteworthy that at least one of the stewards involved in the decision under appeal, was also a steward in a number of the earlier matters. We draw from that he had actual knowledge and other stewards had constructive knowledge of those previous matters, giving rise to an inference that the present matter was distinguishable.

Departure from the recommended penalty was not irrational

79. We have accepted that the recommended penalty should be regarded as a mandatory relevant consideration and that failure to consider it would constitute legal error. But the rules plainly contemplate a departure.

80. The outcome of this case does not reveal legal error. The fact that a decision might appear to be an outlier relative to previous decisions does not of itself lead to the conclusion that the decision under appeal is unreasonable or outside the realm of appropriate decisions.

81. We do not accept the proposition that the discretion of stewards is legally conditioned by the recommended penalty, in the sense that they must apply the penalty unless they demonstrate a reason not to do so. But nor do we accept Grove Racing’s submission that the exercise of discretion by the stewards is totally at large.

82. The recommended penalties do form a role in the assessment of penalty. They operate as an important benchmark, to be taken into account together with the seriousness and extent of the infringement, performance implications, safety implications, the factual circumstances and proportionality. In our view, the recommended penalties document expressly preserves the authority of the stewards to move above or below the recommendations, including, in an appropriate case, to no penalty.

Proportionality

83. The ultimate objective for the stewards was to ensure that any decision regarding penalty was proportionate to the infringement, taking into account all relevant circumstances. The concept of proportionality is a central consideration in the determination of sporting offences for which there is no mandatory penalty.

84. We adopt the FIA International Court of Appeal approach that “it is firstly to the Stewards to assess what sanction is appropriate and the court should review a sanction only when it has no regulatory basis and/or when it is obviously disproportionate”.

85. The stewards plainly formed the view that in the particular circumstances of this case, the imposition of a penalty would have been disproportionate to the gravity of the infringement. They were entitled to that view.

86. To recap. It was common ground that there was no safety issue. There is no clear evidence which would have caused the stewards to conclude that Grove Racing enjoyed a competitive advantage. There was no finding that Grove Racing acted with intent. The stewards found that the team had acted reasonably in inflating the tyres to 16.32 psi prior to leaving the garage. Stewards concluded that the explanation for the undeinflation was unknown, although they postulated that it may have been a slow leak. That was in the nature of speculation, it was not a finding of fact. There was no reason for the stewards to have formed the view that a penalty was necessary to effect either specific or general deterrence.

87. Viewed through the lens of proportionality, the decision of the stewards not to impose a penalty is not illogical or irrational. It is not a decision which sits so far out of the realm of reasonableness that no other group of stewards, faced with the same facts and circumstances, could have reached the same decision.

CONCLUSION

88. There is a reasonable expectation that a decision which substantially departs from a recommended penalty will be accompanied by an explanation of the reasoning which led to the outcome. That is an important part of the process. A failure to adequately explain the pathway of reasoning may lead to confusion for other participants and to speculation, as is the case here, that the decision was made without reference to the Rules and the recommended penalties. It is for that reason that where the stewards decide to prepare written reasons they should reveal, so far as possible within time constraints, all of the matters which were taken into consideration.

89. In the present case, the reasons might have benefited from an express reference to the Recommended Penalties document. Given the marked disparity between the recommended penalty and the decision to impose no penalty, it would have assisted future readers of the reasons to understand that the mitigating circumstances were regarded as exceptional and unique.

90. That said, stewards should not be discouraged from providing written reasons. It is important that competitors have an opportunity to understand the reasons for decisions and the path of reasoning adopted by stewards in particular cases. But stewards should not fear being held to the standards of a court of law.

91. V8 Supercars has failed to demonstrate the decision of the stewards was affected by legal error.

92. The appeal must be dismissed.