The governing body of Formula One has rejected McLaren’s request to reconsider a penalty imposed on Lando Norris at the United States Grand Prix.
Norris dropped from third to fourth place in the race results after receiving a five-second penalty for overtaking title contender Max Verstappen off the course.
Stewards for the regulatory body, the FIA, rejected McLaren’s submission because it featured “no relevant new element”.
McLaren had questioned the stewards’ conclusion, claiming that it was based on a “error” in assessing the incident.
Norris was penalized because he did not follow F1’s driver overtaking criteria, which state that for a car overtaking on the outside to be given space by the defender on the inside, their car’s front
The axle must be ahead of the car’s front axle on the inside at the corner’s apex. McLaren contended at the hearing that Norris was the defending driver because he had already passed Verstappen on the straight before the two cars braked for the corner in question, Turn 12 at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
If that argument been accepted, different sections of the overtaking guidelines would have applied, most notably Verstappen would have committed a violation by forcing Norris off the course.
However, the stewards determined that McLaren’s claim was “unsustainable” because “the concept that the [stewards’ judgment] was the substantial and relevant new element, or that an error in the decision was a new element,
is not sustainable and is hence rejected. McLaren released this statement: “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.”
Verstappen will preserve his 57-point advantage over Norris heading into this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix, with five races remaining and 146 points still available.
The incident involving Norris and Verstappen has sparked heated debate in F1, with many drivers believing that Verstappen, despite following the letter of the rules, violated racing ethics.
Lewis Hamilton, a seven-time champion, stated on Thursday that “you shouldn’t be able to come off the brakes and run more speed in and go off the track and still hold your place.”
Hamilton’s comment summed up a widely held belief in F1 that Verstappen’s default defence in such instances should be prohibited.
On other occasions, the three-time world champion has used a strategy in which he releases the brake just enough to comply with the rule requiring him to be ahead of the apex but then races wide off track, bringing his adversary with him.
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