The FIA has dismissed a right of review submitted by McLaren over the five-second penalty handed to Lando Norris at the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
Norris was punished for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at Turn 12 on Lap 52 of the United States GP, as both he and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen ran off the circuit.
Albeit aggrieved by the punishment, McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella ruled out further protest last Sunday after the race’s conclusion at the Circuit of the Americas.
However, on Thursday, the McLaren squad made a U-turn and lodged a right of review, believing it had “significant” new evidence to overturn the stewards’ decision.
“We believe there is a significant and new element that was unavailable to us at the time the decision was made,” a McLaren statement read.
A hearing was held via video conference at 14:30 local time at the Mexico City GP on Friday – whereby McLaren representatives where able to submit their new evidence.
READ MORE – McLaren lodge petition for right of review after Lando Norris F1 US GP penalty
Stella and Racing Director Randeep Singh attended the hearing on behalf of McLaren with Nikolas Tombazis and Tim Malyon attending on behalf of the FIA.
Red Bull Racing’s Jonathan Wheatley and Stephen Knowles appeared on behalf of the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
The hearing sought to determine if “a significant and relevant new element is discovered which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned.”
Moreover, the stewards sought to understand whether the evidence submitted was significant, relevant, new and unavailable to McLaren at the time of the decision.
McLaren evidence not sufficient enough to overturn Lando Norris penalty
McLaren’s “new” element was an opposing view of who was the overtaking driver in the incident.
The Woking-based outfit adjudged that Verstappen was in fact the overtaking driver, given Norris had passed the Red Bull driver on the approach to Turn 12.
“In relation to relevance, 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 stewards’ verdict read.
In response to McLaren’s submission, the stewards decreed that “this is unsustainable. A petition for review is made in order to correct an error (of fact or law) in a decision.
“In this case, the concept that the written Decision 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 decision means the result of the United States GP stands, with Verstappen finishing in third and Norris fourth.
As a result, McLaren’s Norris trails Red Bull’s Verstappen by 57 points in the Drivers’ standings with five rounds of the 2024 F1 season left to run.
Following the stewards’ rejection, McLaren responded by saying it “disagrees 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.
“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.”
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