FIA rejects Mercedes' request to review Verstappen/Hamilton incident

The FIA has dismissed Mercedes' request for a right to review last weekend's contentious incident in Sao Paulo between Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

The Dutch driver's controversial move against his championship rival on lap 48, when he ran wide and forced Hamilton off the track at Interlagos' Turn 9 was noted by the stewards at the time but not given any further scrutiny, much to Mercedes' ire.

The Brackley squad relied on its right to call for another review of the tussle based on the introduction of new evidence represented by forward facing onboard footage from Verstappen car.

However, after a deliberation process that started on Friday and concluded on Saturday, the stewards ruled that the footage, while new, was not significant.

"The Stewards often must make a decision quickly and on a limited set of information," said the FIA in a statement released on Friday.

"At the time of the decision, the Stewards felt they had sufficient information to make a decision, which subsequently broadly aligned with the immediate post-race comments of both drivers involved.

"Had they felt that the forward-facing camera video from Car 33 was crucial in order to take a decision, they would simply have placed the incident under investigation – to be investigated after the race – and rendered a decision after this video was available. They saw no need to do so.

"The Competitor's position is that this new Footage provides sufficient information for the Stewards to come to an altogether different conclusion than they did previously.

"However, the Stewards determine that the Footage shows nothing exceptional that is particularly different from the other angles that were available to them at the time, or that particularly changes their decision that was based on the originally available footage.

"Unlike the 2020 Austria case, in the judgement of the Stewards, there is nothing in the Footage that fundamentally changes the facts. Nor even, does this show anything that wasn't considered by the Stewards at the time.

"Thus, the Stewards determine that the Footage, here, is not 'Significant'."

• Read also: Mercedes details FIA test that led to Hamilton exclusion in Brazil

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff admitted to not being surprised by the FIA's decision, insisting that the main purpose of Mercedes' request was to "trigger a discussion".

"Completely expected," said the Austrian. "I think we wanted to trigger a discussion around it, because probably it will be a theme in the next few races. I think that objective is achieved. We didn't really think it would go any further."

Red Bull's Christian Horner welcomed the FIA's decision, saying an adverse ruling "would have opened Pandora's Box regarding a whole bunch of other incidents that happened at that race.

"I think the most important thing now is to focus on this GP," added Horner.

"It's great to be here in Qatar. I think it's going to be a good circuit, and we want a good clean fair fight, not just here, but in Jeddah and Abu Dhabi."

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