The Mongol GP of Brazil, Interlagos

[DoubleFart]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Lewis was never making that corner with full tanks and cold tyres - he didn't even aim at the apex, so that is NOT on Max.

Lewis defended too late into T1 at Monza, and panics.

[Circuitmaster]

Lewis was never making that corner with full tanks and cold tyres - he didn't even aim at the apex, so that is NOT on Max.

Lewis defended too late into T1 at Monza, and panics.

Yeah I agree on the Monza one after much thought. If someone can go the long way around T1 and still be alongside for T2 then they've earned a car's width. Hammy pushed him onto the curb. I think the penalty was based purely on the anticipation that Hammy would have outscores Max at that race. (As well as a really feeble attempt to even out the penalties from Silverstone.. don't get me started)

[erwin greven]

Max is not interested in racing like that. Although he has not forgotten Silverstone. Lewis punting him off the track and then winning the race.

I don't buy that argument at all.

1. Silverstone consist of Hamilton putting his front wheel where it did not belong and Max driving into it (he had room). While the stewards stated that the accident was "mostly" Hamilton's fault, I do think that Max made a mistake by not leaving more room (which he easily could have).

2. Then there is Monza, where Max pretty much just drove into Lewis.

3. And then there is Brazil, where Verstappen put much more than his front wheel where it did not belong and Hamilton has to exit the track to avoid the accident (and this is not the first time this has happened this season).

So yea... I don't buy the statement "Max is not interested in racing like that..." as he has already done so several times this season.

1 Then why had Lewis no problems to overtake Leclerc while the latter one ran the same line as Max did? Because Lewis DID hit the apex when overtaking Leclerc. It was Lewis who made a mess of that corner in Lap 1. He was LUCKY Max was out of the race and the race directors threw the red flag.

3. Do you have a wallet at all?

[Picci]

Look. I saw the onboard with Max and to be fair he did lift and he was also busy trying to keep to the left. I don't think he intentionally ran Lewis wide. He knew Lewis wasn't going to make the corner either and took comfort from that. The problem is the lack of grass (as usual). That would have settled it.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Look. I saw the onboard with Max and to be fair he did lift and he was also busy trying to keep to the left. I don't think he intentionally ran Lewis wide. He knew Lewis wasn't going to make the corner either and took comfort from that. The problem is the lack of grass (as usual). That would have settled it.

Or a big gravel trap. That would have worked also.

[Everso Biggyballies]

The result from the 'right to appeal' meeting held last night has now been put off until later on Friday.

Should the stewards grant a right of review though, then there will be a separate hearing to analyse the specific details of the case. So should the right of further review be accepted the further review still needs to be heard and so if (and it is a big if) Max is retrospetively found guild and penalised, it might not even be here in Qatar he takes a penalty.

I believe they will be unable to dish out a retrospective time penalty in relation to Brazil on the basis that had Max known he had received a say 5 second penalty at the time, he would have driven harder in the final laps to ensure Bottas remained more than 5 seconds behind at the flag. So all they can do is, if required, give Max a small (3 or 5 place) grid penalty.

[Circuitmaster]

The result from the 'right to appeal' meeting held last night has now been put off until later on Friday.

Should the stewards grant a right of review though, then there will be a separate hearing to analyse the specific details of the case. So should the right of further review be accepted the further review still needs to be heard and so if (and it is a big if) Max is retrospetively found guild and penalised, it might not even be here in Qatar he takes a penalty.

I believe they will be unable to dish out a retrospective time penalty in relation to Brazil on the basis that had Max known he had received a say 5 second penalty at the time, he would have driven harder in the final laps to ensure Bottas remained more than 5 seconds behind at the flag. So all they can do is, if required, give Max a small (3 or 5 place) grid penalty.

Yeah but that would also be unfair - why penalise Max because they took so long to determine his guilt? At Silverstone Hamilton was found instantly guilty which meant he was able to serve his penalty and still win the race.

So because Max's guilt is less obvious, he ends up getting a harsher penalty (A grid penalty as opposed to a negligible time penalty). Bullspit

[Cheeveer]

Max said that this shows Mercedes' true nature. Sure, of any manufacturer, not just in F1 but in all motorsport, Mercedes have the essence of a corporation more than of a racing team. See all their conduct in DTM and sports cars for example. Win at all costs, sporting morale be damned.

[Everso Biggyballies]

At last we have a decision on the Mercedes right to review "the incident"....

The FIA has denied Mercedes a right to review over its decision not to investigate Max Verstappen’s driving at Formula 1’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

So no penalty will be forthcoming and we can move on. Results are as already published and no chance of any other penalties being applied.

And no further right of appeal by Mercedes over this incident.

Of course, whether this now sets a dangerous precedent and it becomes a free for all who knows. Are we now going to see a raft of dirty driving ? Time will tell.


Here is the full statement from the stewards: Its the longest statement over an F1 incident I have ever seen.

The Competitor provided the Stewards with a letter dated 16 November 2021 with Appendices setting out its arguments in support of the Petition.

Pursuant to Art. 14 of the ISC, a petition for review must be filed against a Stewards' decision and can only be granted if a Competitor successfully demonstrates "that a significant and relevant new element is discovered which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned." Provided that there is a Stewards' decision, the four key points that the Competitor must demonstrate are that the new element must be (i) Significant, (ii) Relevant (iii) New; and (iv) Unavailable at the time to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned.

Here, the Competitor points, in particular, to the forward-facing onboard camera footage and the 360° onboard camera footage from Car 33 (the "Footage"), which had to be downloaded after the race as the elements supporting the request for a Right to Review hearing.

It is important to note that the following is not an affirmation or review of the Stewards determination made during the race, but rather is an assessment regarding whether the Right of Review exists.



"The Decision"

With respect to "Incidents during the race", Art. 47.1 of the 2021 FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations (the "SR") states:

"The Race Director may report any on-track incident or suspected breach of these Sporting Regulations or the Code (an "Incident") to the stewards. After review it shall be at the discretion of the stewards to decide whether or not to proceed with an investigation. The stewards may also investigate an Incident noted by themselves." (emphasis added)

The stewards do not sit passively during a race and did not do so in this case. By the time the Race Director asked the Stewards for their view and stated that it was going to be "Noted" on the timing screens, they were already looking at the available footage. The subsequent discretionary decision of the Stewards not to proceed with a formal investigation is the motor racing equivalent of "Play-On" in other sports.

There will always be some angles of video footage, because of limits in both technology and bandwidth, that are unavailable at the time. Whether or not stewards' decisions are considered to be right or wrong, and just as with referees' decisions in soccer, it does not seem desirable to be able to review any or all such in-race discretionary decisions up to two weeks after the fact and the Stewards therefore seriously doubt that the intent of the Right of Review in the ISC is to enable competitors to seek a review of such discretionary decisions that do not follow on from a formal inquiry by the Stewards and do not result in a published document.

Despite the foregoing, Art. 47.1 of the SR applies to the present case as it explicitly states that it is up to "the stewards to decide whether or not to proceed with an investigation", whereas Art. 14 of the ISC refers to "the decision concerned" (small d). As a result, the Stewards in this very specific case determine that the "Turn 4 incident involving cars 33 (Ver) and 44 (Ham): no investigation necessary" constitutes a decision. Having said that and taking the four above-mentioned key points of the Right of Review in reverse order, the Stewards hereby make the following assessment:

Unavailable

It is undeniable that the Footage was unavailable to the Competitor at the time of the Stewards' Decision. Only a single channel of video from each car is available to the broadcaster and the Stewards at any given time and during the incident on Lap 48, the camera selected on Car 33 was the rear facing camera. This then means that it is also unavailable to the Competitor. While not available live, all the other cameras are recorded on-board the cars and are available for download post-race. This test is therefore met.

New

Many camera angles are not available live to the competitors but are to the Stewards. So, the Stewards considered whether footage that is simply not broadcast or not available to the competitors should be considered new. This is especially in light of the argument that this type of decision is the equivalent of "play on" in other sports.

The Competitor provided as an exhibit, Document 41 from the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix where the onboard 360° camera in that case, which was unavailable to both the team and the Stewards at the time of the initial hearing, was subsequently available and considered "new" by the Stewards at the time.

The Stewards consider this case to be similar and thus determine the test to be met.

Relevant

The Competitor proposed that the Footage was relevant because it was the only footage that allowed the overall position of the cars, the steering inputs of the driver of Car 33, the heading of the cars and the proximity of the cars to be analysed together. While the Stewards often have to make a decision with a limited set of facts, it is true that in making their review, the front facing camera was one of the angles that the Stewards looked for. The Footage is a direct view of the incident, is not extraneous and is therefore, in the Stewards opinion Relevant.

Significant

Whether this Footage is "significant" is really a question of whether or not it is likely to change the initial decision of the stewards.

In the pertinent example brought forward by the Competitor from Austria in 2020, none of the footage available and viewed at the time of the decision, showed a yellow flag visible to the driver (Lewis Hamilton.) However, the new and previously unavailable 360° camera footage, which was downloaded the next day, clearly showed that the yellow flag was visible from the car and the driver was penalized for failing to slow down. In that case, the footage absolutely changed the decision of the stewards and was thus significant. During the hearing, the Competitor asked that if the Stewards were unconvinced of the significance of the Footage, to be given the opportunity to present its view in that respect. Following the initial part of the hearing, the Stewards gave the Competitor the opportunity to do so, there being precedent for this. The previously unavailable Footage was played, and the Competitor also presented the Footage in a side-by-side comparison with the previous lap.

As noted above, the Stewards often must make a decision quickly and on a limited set of information. 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."



Conclusion

The Stewards find, in their sole discretion, that:

- With the reservations raised above, the decision is subject to the Right of Review;
- That the Footage is New;
- That the Footage was Unavailable to the Competitor at the time of the decision subject to the petition for review;
- That the Footage is Relevant; but
- That the Footage is not Significant;
- The four key points required under Art. 14.1.1 are not met and the Stewards, therefore,
deny the Competitor’s Right of Review.

Competitors are reminded that, in accordance with Art. 14.3 of the ISC, this decision is not subject to
appeal.

[Everso Biggyballies]

After all the bullshit of Max and Lewis, Toto and Christian etc, all poncing about getting nowhere, it is very refreshing to see how others sort their differences out....
Here is how Lando and Carlos sorted out and debriefed their get together going into T1 at the same event. @John will like this one for sure given where it takes place.

https://streamable.com/qptx5q

[John]

After all the bullshit of Max and Lewis, Toto and Christian etc, all poncing about getting nowhere, it is very refreshing to see how others sort their differences out....
Here is how Lando and Carlos sorted out and debriefed their get together going into T1 at the same event. @John will like this one for sure given where it takes place.

https://streamable.com/qptx5q

Love these two.