The Verstappen/Hamilton incident is closed
This Thursday, Mercedes and Red Bull were called before the stewards after an appeal by the Austrian team regarding the penalty imposed on Hamilton. The penalty remains unchanged and the German team accuses its rivals of wanting to tarnish the reputation of the Briton.
The controversial saga between Red Bull and Mercedes is over. According to Helmut Marko, his team has brought new facts that were not available at the time of the race interruption or when the whole matter was dealt with.
However, these new pieces of evidence did not sit well with the FIA, which rejected the appeal made by Red Bull. As a result, Lewis Hamilton does not incur a more severe penalty and retains his victory on home soil at Silverstone.
According to the published report, the commissioners have determined:
a) that what was presented to the commissioners was not ‘new, significant and relevant element that was not available to the parties introducing the appeal.
moment of the decision in question.
b) that the slides in Annex 2 of the competitor’s letter (Red Bull), which were cited as new evidence, were not “discovered”, but created in order to support the request for revision. And they were created based on evidence that the competitor had at the time of the decision (contrary to what Marko claimed). This clearly does not meet the requirements of article 14.
For this reason, the commissioners reject the request for review.
Mercedes reacts to the decision
A few moments after the official publication of the commissioners’ decision, Mercedes released a statement in which it congratulates itself on the outcome of the meeting following Red Bull’s appeal. The German team also specifies that this action was aimed at tarnishing the name and image of Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team welcomes the decision of the stewards to reject Red Bull Racing’s right of review.
In addition to putting an end to this incident, we hope that this decision will mark the end of a concerted effort by the Red Bull Racing management to tarnish the name and sporting integrity of Lewis Hamilton, including in the documents submitted for their unsuccessful right of review. We are now looking forward to the race this weekend and to continue our fierce competition for the FIA Formula 1 World Championship 2021, reads the statement.
