No review of F1 decision

DOHA • Formula One stewards yesterday rejected a request by Mercedes to review their Sao Paulo Grand Prix decision not to penalise Red Bull's championship leader Max Verstappen for a race incident with Lewis Hamilton.

The stewards, after meeting both teams on Thursday, ruled ahead of this weekend's Qatar Grand Prix that while new and relevant video evidence had emerged, it was not significant.

The incident under scrutiny came on Lap 48 of the 71-lap contest in Sao Paulo last week as Mercedes' Hamilton attempted to overtake Verstappen for the race lead at Turn 4.

The Dutchman defended his position vigorously and both cars ran off the circuit and across a run-off area. The stewards reviewed the incident and decided to take no further action, but the later release of on-board video from Verstappen's car led to Mercedes requesting the review, citing new evidence.

After announcing their decision yesterday, the stewards said: "There will always be some angles of video footage, because of limits in both technology and bandwidth, that are unavailable at the time.

"The competitor's position is that this new footage provides sufficient information for the stewards to come to an altogether different conclusion than they did previously. However, the stewards determine that the footage shows nothing exceptional that is particularly different from the other angles that were available to them at the time, or that particularly changes their decision...

"At the time of the decision, the stewards felt that they had sufficient information to make a decision."

Seven-time world champion Hamilton won the race at Interlagos to cut Verstappen's lead to 14 points with three races remaining.

Mercedes felt that there should have been a time penalty for the Dutchman. But team boss Toto Wolff said the decision was completely expected.

"We wanted to trigger discussion around it," he said. "I think that objective is achieved. We didn't really think it would go any further."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner said it was the right outcome, adding: "It would have opened Pandora's box regarding a whole bunch of other incidents that happened at that race."

Hamilton, meanwhile, revealed on Thursday that he had not been involved in the review process and, instead, was preserving his energy.

"I haven't been part of it," said the Briton.

"Of course, I am aware of it and I am fully supportive of my team, but I am literally just trying to give all of my energy into this weekend, making sure we arrive and hit the ground running."

He explained that he felt the incident was typical of a closely fought battle for the championship and that he had no complaints.

Verstappen was bullish in his responses to similar questions on Thursday and made clear that he would take the same defensive actions again. He said that if he had attempted to turn in and avoid any incident, he would have spun off.

"I didn't need to look at the footage because I was driving the car so I knew exactly what happened," he said.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE