Stewards have deemed that the new evidence supplied by Ferrari relating to Sebastian Vettel’s incident in Canada is inadmissible, ostensibly bringing the case to a close.
Vettel was judged to have re-joined the track unsafely and caused the pursuing Lewis Hamilton to take evasive action when he went off at Turn 4 two-thirds of the race through the race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Stewards slapped Vettel with a race-defining five-second time penalty, the offence of which was contested by Ferrari.
It declined to appeal, given that time sanctions cannot be debated in such a fashion, but it invoked the right to review, under Article 14 of the FIA’s International Sporting Code.
The FIA reconvened the Canadian Grand Prix stewards on Friday afternoon at Paul Ricard, with Ferrari Sporting Director Laurent Mekies representing the team, in a bid to have the case re-opened.
After a couple of hours it was confirmed that the stewards deemed there to be “no significant and relevant new elements that were unavailable to the parties at the time of the competition concerned.”
Ferrari presented telemetry, data, Vettel's witness statement, and, unusually, video analysis performed by Karun Chandhok on Sky Sports after the race.
With the stewards rejecting the right to review, Hamilton retains his Canadian GP victory, with Vettel second.
Full stewards explanation:
"According to Article 14 of the FIA International Sporting Code and Article 2.2 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations, only those elements may be regarded as "new", which have not been available to Scuderia Ferrari before the end of the Event (18:44 on June 9, 2019 – end of scrutineering).
Scuderia Ferrari presented the following elements in the hearing:
(i) analysis of the telemetry data of VET’s car, including car attitude channels;
(ii) a video analysis of the camera views (front view, top view, onboard cameras of VET and HAM) prepared after the race;
(iii) a video analysis performed by Karun Chandhok for Sky Sports after the race;
(iv) a video of VET’s face camera, which was released by F1 Limited after the race;
(v) post-race and video images;
(vi) analysis of the GPS racing line data of both HAM and VET in the Situation lap and in the previous race laps; and
(vii) Witness statement of VET (the “VET WS”).
Elements (i), (ii), (v), (vi) & (vii) were available before the end of the competition.
Element (iii) was new but not significant and relevant as this is a personal opinion by a third party.
Element (iv) was new but not significant and relevant as the evidence contained in this video footage can be seen within other available video."
It means that the case has now been closed, confirming Hamilton as the Canadian Grand Prix victor.
