McLaren’s appeal against Lando Norris’s demotion at last weekend’s United States Grand Prix has been rejected by FIA stewards.
The British team launched a right of review action on Thursday and a meeting was called for Friday to determine whether they had significant new evidence.
Without that, the decision to impose a five-second penalty on Norris for passing Max Verstappen off the circuit would stand. And thus the matter was resolved.
The result is that Verstappen’s third place remains, as does Norris’s fourth. Verstappen’s lead, therefore, remains at 57 points heading into Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix.
The stewards’ decision rejected McLaren’s claim that Verstappen was the overtaking car, as Norris had overtaken him in the braking zone (although not at the apex).
Lando Norris received a five-second penalty for overtaking Max Verstappen off the track
Norris was deemed to have illegally overtaken Verstappen in the closing stages of the race.
The stewards said: “In relation to relevance, McLaren appears to claim that the stewards found that “car 4 had overtaken car 1 before the apex (and therefore that car 1 was the overtaker) and that this error claimed It is in itself a new element.
‘This is unsustainable. A petition for review is filed to correct an error (in fact or law) in a decision. Any new element must demonstrate that error. The error whose existence must be demonstrated cannot in 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 sustainable and is therefore rejected.”
McLaren responded with a statement of its own: “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 taken by the stewards, cannot be an admissible ‘element’ that meets the four criteria established by the ISC, as specified in article 14.3.
‘We would like to thank the FIA and the stewards for considering this case in a timely manner.
“We will continue to work closely with the FIA to better understand how teams can constructively challenge decisions that lead to incorrect race classification.”
