The FIA have rejected Sebastian Vettel’s appeal against his penalty in the Mexican Grand Prix after Ferrari didn’t provide new evidence which the team said they had.
The German was awarded a ten second penalty dropping him from third to fifth after being found to have illegally moved under braking to defend against Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. Vettel was the first to be caught out by the so-called Verstappen Rule which aims to clamp down on some defensive moves.
Ferrari said on their arrival in Brazil that they had new evidence calling on the stewards to review the incident and the governing body arranged a conference call between the three Mexico stewards, the Italian team and Red Bull on Thursday afternoon.
The two points the team made were, Charlie Whiting had to ‘power’ to order Verstappen to give the place back after he ran wide at turn one and there data presented a ‘new element’ in the case.
The steward said that there was no ‘new evidence’ in the case and explained in a statement.
“In relation to the matter of the Race Director having the “power” to instruct the driver of Car 33 to give back the alleged advantage, we note firstly that the relevant article gives the Race Director “absolute authority” to allow the driver to give back a position,”
“It does not imply an obligation to do so. The fact that the Race Director did not exercise his discretion is not relevant to the decision taken in Document 38.
“In relation to the GPS data, we note that this data is available to teams during the race. It is also available to, and referred to by, the stewards, in the Stewards Room during the race.”
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