McLaren has had its request for a Right of Review into Lando Norris’ Austin penalty rejected by the FIA stewards for last weekend’s Formula 1 race in Austin.
McLaren had argued that the stewards made an incorrect statement – and overall call – in handing Norris a penalty in Document 69 (from the FIA timing system) of the Austin weekend.
It was this that the Woking team submitted as a “significant and relevant new element that was unavailable to McLaren at the time the stewards took their decision” to penalise Norris.
McLaren tried to argue that Norris had successfully got ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the scrap at Turn 12 late in the United States Grand Prix and so became a defending car and not an attacker when Verstappen shot back to reach the apex of the corner ahead before they both ran wide and Norris overtook in the wide run-off area.
In order for the Right of Review procedure to get to its second stage, which here would have been a new case assessing if Norris’s penalty would be rescinded, all teams initiating this process must prove to the stewards what they are arguing as new evidence is ‘significant’, ‘relevant’, ‘new’ and ‘unavailable at the time of the decision’.
The hearing in the Mexican GP paddock – with the Austin stewards joining via video – lasted just 25 minutes, as McLaren team boss Andrea Stella and team manager Randeep Singh made their case.
Red Bull representatives, which included sporting director Jonathan Wheatley, FIA officials including head of single seater matters Nikolas Tombazis were also present – with Wheatley outlining Red Bull’s arguments in the case.
Singh argued that McLaren believed ‘Document 69’ was a significant and relevant new element because “The document for the decision contained a statement that was incorrect and that [therefore] evidenced an objective, measurable and provable error had been made by the stewards” – per the FIA document announcing the Right of Review had been rejected.
McLaren said “that the statement [in ‘Document 69’] was that “Car 4 was overtaking Car 1 on the outside but was not level with Car 1 at the apex” and that “the above statement was in error because McLaren had evidence that Car 4 had already overtaken and was ahead of Car 1 “at the braking zone”.
Stella argued that “the case for McLaren was a ‘legally sophisticated explanation’ and urged the stewards to recognize that this was a substantive case especially compared to previous Right of Review cases”.
Wheatley said Red Bull felt none of the four Right of Review criteria had been met in this case and said, also per the relevant FIA document, that “in view of the “very high bar” that is set (in Article 14 of the FIA International Sporting Code) for a successful petitioning of a Right of Review, it is “extremely onerous” to establish the existence of the new element”.
McLaren, however, believed its evidence presented met the high bar required and also “stated that he felt there needed to be another way to correct decisions taken in a race”.
Having adjourned the hearing, the Austin stewards decided to only focus on one of the Right of Review elements – relevance – and declared that “the concept that the written Decision (Document 69) was the significant and relevant new element, or that an error in the decision was a new element, is not sustainable and is therefore rejected”.
The Austin stewards also explained that “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.
The statement continued: “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 Article 14 (of the ISC).”
At the end of their petition rejection document, the Austin stewards also commented on the “high bar” element of the Right of Review rule in the ISC.
They determined to draw the FIA’s attention to how “The current ‘high bar’ that exists in Article 14 and the fact that it appears to have been designed more for decisions that are taken as a result of a hearing where all parties are present, rather than in the pressurised environment of a race session, when decisions are taken, (as is allowed under the International Sporting Code), without all parties being present.”
This is an element of how Norris’s penalty was applied in Austin – without hearing his or Verstappen’s point of view – that had frustrated McLaren last weekend.
Following the decision, McLaren issued a statement which read: "We acknowledge the Stewards’ decision to reject our petition requesting a Right of Review.
"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."
