Mercedes seek review over Lewis Hamilton-Max Verstappen incident at Brazilian Grand Prix with 'new evidence'
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Published 16/11/2021 at 16:26 GMT
Could there be another twist in the Formula 1 title race? Defending champion Lewis Hamilton is currently 14 points behind leader Max Verstappen after coming from behind to win the Brazilian Grand Prix last weekend. However, Mercedes have requested a review over an incident that occurred that saw both drivers leave the track.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton
Image credit: Getty Images
Mercedes say they have “new evidence” that has led them to request a “right of review” over the incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton at the Brazilian Grand Prix that saw both drivers leave the track.
Hamilton stormed back from 10th on the grid to win the race and cut Verstappen’s championship lead to 14 points with three races of the season remaining.
The incident in question came on lap 48 of the race when Verstappen was trying to defend his lead from Hamilton.
Hamilton looked to have lined up a pass at Turn 4 and the two cars came close to touching before they both ran off the track after under-braking.
Hamilton called the defensive move from Verstappen “crazy” over the radio, but it was not investigated by the stewards at the time. Perhaps crucially, stewards did not have access to Verstappen’s forward-facing camera – which would have shown his steering inputs – and could only view his rearward-facing camera.
FIA Formula 1 race director Michael Masi said the footage could be significant in making a decision on the incident.
“It could be, absolutely,” he said. “Potentially, absolutely. But no, we didn’t have access to it. Obviously it’s been downloaded and once we do, and once the commercial rights holder supplies it, we’ll have a look.”
“The forward-facing, the 360, all of the camera angles that we don’t get live will be downloaded and we’ll have a look at them post-race.”
Mercedes were left unhappy that Verstappen was not penalised on a weekend when they already felt several decisions had gone against them.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: “We had a broken part on our rear wing which we couldn’t look at, couldn’t analyse, failed the test, and after disqualified, very harsh.
“And then you see on the Red Bull repairs, three times in a row on a rear wing whilst being in parc ferme with no consequence. That’s one thing, and obviously that really peaked with the decision in the race, which was, I mean, really wrong defence from Max, absolutely an inch over the limit, but he needed to do that to defend.
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“Lewis just managed it even more brilliantly by avoiding the contact and end the race that way. But that was just over the line, it should have been a five-second penalty at least. Probably Max knew that. Just brushing it under the carpet, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s just laughable.”
Red Bull boss Christian Horner saw the incident differently to his Mercedes counterpart.
"It's two guys running hard. Lewis has got a run around the outside, Max has gone in deep, they've both gone wide. It would have been really unfair to penalise on that. If it was the other way around, I would have told my sporting director to have a moan about it but I wouldn't have expected really anything from it."
If Verstappen was given a retrospective five-second penalty for the incident then that would push him down into third, behind Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas.
However, Red Bull may argue that Verstappen, who finished three seconds ahead of Bottas, was cruising at the end of the race as Hamilton was so far out of reach.
The next race of the season takes place in Qatar at the weekend before the season finishes in Saudi Araba and Abu Dhabi.
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