The FIA have this afternoon confirmed that they will not be reopening an investigation into the clash between Verstappen and Hamilton in Sao Paulo last weekend.
The pair ran wide at Turn 4 during the Grand Prix, inciting stewards to note the incident, but later deemed an investigation unnecessary.
However, on Tuesday Mercedes asked for a Right of Review of that decision based on what they said was new evidence found after new onboard footage was made available.
After deliberating overnight on Thursday, the stewards today confirmed that they would not revisit the issue despite the evidence.
They explained: “There will always be some angles of video footage, because of limits in both technology and bandwidth, that are unavailable at the time.
“Whether or not stewards’ decisions are considered to be right or wrong, and just as with referees’ decisions in soccer, it does not seem desirable to be able to review any or all such in‐race discretionary decisions up to two weeks after the fact and the stewards therefore seriously doubt that the intent of the Right of Review in the International Sporting Code is to enable competitors to seek a review of such discretionary decisions that do not follow on from a formal inquiry by the stewards and do not result in a published document.”
Thye went on to say that even though the footage was deemed “new evidence”, they didn’t see it as significant in this particular case.
Their statement said: “The stewards often must make a decision quickly and on a limited set of information. At the time of the decision, the stewards felt they had sufficient information to make a decision, which subsequently broadly aligned with the immediate post‐race comments of both drivers involved.
“Had they felt that the forward‐facing camera video from Car 33 [Verstappen] was crucial in order to take a decision, they would simply have placed the incident under investigation – to be investigated after the race – and rendered a decision after this video was available. They saw no need to do so.”
