The McLaren Formula 1 team says it disagrees with the decision of the US GP stewards to reject its request for a right of review into the five-second penalty handed to Lando Norris in Austin.
The request was a last roll of the dice by the Woking team to try to reverse the decision that saw Norris cede third place to Verstappen, creating a six-point swing in the World Championship battle.
The stewards determined that the request did not meet the established right of review test of supplying evidence that was significant, relevant, new and unavailable to McLaren at the time of the decision, as noted in Article 14 of the International Sporting Code.
A virtual hearing was held on Friday afternoon Mexican time, with team boss Andrea Stella and racing director Randeep Singh appearing for McLaren, and sporting director Jonathan Wheatley and senior race strategy engineer Stephen Knowles representing Red Bull.
In essence McLaren’s case hinged on the claim that Norris was ahead and that in fact it was Verstappen doing the overtaking, contrary to what was noted in the original decision made by the US GP stewards.
As explained by the FIA, Singh suggested in the hearing that the new evidence was that “the document for the decision contained a statement that was incorrect and that evidenced an objective, measurable and provable error had been made by the stewards”.
The FIA said that Singh added that “the statement was that ‘Car 4 was overtaking Car 1 on the outside but was not level with Car 1 at the apex’ […] was in error because McLaren had evidence that Car 4 had already overtaken and was ahead of Car 1 ‘at the braking zone’,” and that “this error is significant and relevant and is new and was unavailable to McLaren at the time of the decision.”
The FIA noted that Stella said that the case for McLaren was a “legally sophisticated explanation” and “urged the stewards to recognise that this was a ‘substantive case’ especially compared to previous right of review cases.”
In rejecting the request the stewards say they focussed on relevance, concluding that the claim that there was an error in their original decision could not be new evidence.
They noted that “in relation to relevance, McLaren appears to submit that the stewards’ finding that ‘Car 4 was not level with Car 1 at the apex’ was an error and that Car 4 had overtaken Car 1 before the apex (and therefore that Car 1 was the overtaking car) and that this asserted error is itself, a new element.
“This is unsustainable. A petition for review is made in order to correct an error (of fact or law) in a decision. Any new element must demonstrate that error. The error that must be shown to exist, cannot itself be the element referred to.”
In the wake of the decision McLaren issue a statement making its position clear.
The team said: “We disagree with the interpretation that an FIA document, which makes a competitor aware of an objective, measurable and provable error in the decision made by the stewards, cannot be an admissible ‘element’ which meets all four criteria set by the ISC, as specified in Article 14.3.
“We would like to thank the FIA and the stewards for having considered this case in a timely manner.
“We will continue to work closely with the FIA to further understand how teams can constructively challenge decisions that lead to an incorrect classification of the race.”
Adam Cooper F1 