McLaren’s appeal against Lando Norris’ demotion during last weekend’s American Grand Prix has been rejected by the FIA stewards.
The British team launched a right of review on Thursday and a meeting was convened on Friday to determine whether they had significant new evidence.
Without that, the decision to impose a five-second penalty on Norris for overtaking Max Verstappen outside the circuit would remain in force. And so the matter was settled.
The result is that Verstappen’s third place remains, as does Norris’s fourth place. Verstappen’s lead therefore remains at 57 points going into Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix.
The stewards’ ruling rejected McLaren’s claim that Verstappen was the overtaking car, having been passed by Norris in the braking zone (although not the apex).
Lando Norris received a five-second time penalty for overtaking Max Verstappen off the track
Norris is said to have illegally overtaken Verstappen in the final phase of the race
The Stewards said: ‘In relation to relevance, McLaren appears to be claiming that the Stewards’ findings that “Car 4 had overtaken Car 1 before the apex (and therefore that Car 1 was the overtaking car) and that this alleged error was in itself a new error.” element.
‘This is unsustainable. A request for review is filed to correct an error (factual or legal) in a decision. Each new element must demonstrate that error. The error whose existence must be demonstrated cannot itself be the element referred to in Article 14.
“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 tenable and is therefore rejected.”
McLaren responded with its own statement: “We acknowledge the stewards’ decision to reject our petition requesting a right of review.
‘We do not agree with the interpretation that an FIA document, which makes a competitor aware of an objective, measurable and demonstrable error in the decision of the stewards, cannot be an admissible ‘element’ that meets all four criteria of the ISC, as specified in Article 14.3.
‘We would like to thank the FIA and the stewards for their timely consideration of this matter.
‘We will continue to work closely with the FIA to better understand how teams can constructively challenge decisions that lead to an incorrect classification of the race.’
