The second appeal from Mercedes rejected, Verstappen keeps his title
Max Verstappen officially retains his title as the world champion driver, as Mercedes' second appeal to the FIA did not succeed.
New setback for the Mercedes team with the commissioners! After the first announcement, the FIA also postpones the appeal regarding the end of the Safety Car period procedure. A request made in support of Article 48.12 of the FIA Sporting Regulations. However, the commissioners did not receive the request from Toto Wolff’s camp.
Mercedes had lodged a complaint against the restart procedure decided by the race direction at the end of the 57th lap.
The German team had protested on the basis of a violation of this Article 48.12. As a reminder, the article states that « all lapped cars (one lap or more down) must pass both the leader and the Safety Car. Once the last lapped car has passed the leader, the Safety Car returns to the pit at the end of the following lap. »
In this case, all the trailing cars did not overtake the Safety Car: respectively 12th, 13th, and 14th, Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll, and Mick Schumacher remained stuck behind the Hamilton-Verstappen duo at the restart! « If the normal procedure had been followed, the race could not have resumed, and car 44, meaning Lewis Hamilton, would have won the race », according to Mercedes’ defense in front of the FIA.
But the instance justified itself in the following way.
The justification of the FIA:
The race director (note: Michael Masi) explains that the purpose of article 48.12 is to remove the backmarker cars between the leaders, which was ultimately done. The race director also mentioned that an agreement was recently reached between all teams and the FIA. This agreement states that it is desirable for a race to finish under normal conditions, with the green flag, and not under a safety car regime.
Mercedes plans to appeal!
That is why Mercedes’ appeal was rejected. In the end, the race classification is confirmed and Max Verstappen retains the crown he won on the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. Nevertheless, Mercedes has already announced its intention to appeal the decision of the stewards, after also losing on Article 48.8 of the FIA. Mercedes now has 72 hours (until Wednesday night) to submit a file and officially decide whether to appeal.
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) December 12, 2021
