Mercedes will have one chance to overturn the race results and Max Verstappen’s drivers’ championship title. They will also not be allowed to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Formula One teams must sign up to the FIA rules. They make it clear that the International Court of Appeal (Paris) is the exclusive arbiter in disputes. Mercedes has to convince the FIA panel to rule against them.
Mercedes has yet to respond to their appeal. However, the presence in Abu Dhabi of a prominent QC suggests that they are going ahead with it. Their case can be submitted within 96 hours of the event. This makes it unlikely that they will hear the matter this week.
Lewis Hamilton was beaten by Max Verstappen on the last lap, to win the drivers’ title
Mercedes filed two protests against the controversial ending, which was rejected both by the FIA and Mercedes.
Mercedes even considered making Spa in August an earlier race on Sunday night as part of their case following another controversial race director Michael Masi’s decision.
Masi was allowed to do two laps with a safety car in adverse conditions. Lewis Hamilton won the race, but Verstappen got 12.5 points.
Mercedes claims Verstappen won races in Abu Dhabi. Hamilton was negatively affected by this advantage.
Mercedes will not be allowed to bring their Abu Dhabi claim before the Court of Arbitration for Sport
Mercedes may instead keep their attention on Masi’s Abu Dhabi incident, when it believes Masi has violated the F1 rulebook.
The twin concerns of their objections are lapped cars and the exit from the safety car. Mercedes claims Masi crashed Williams’ Nicholas Latifi to create an artificial one-lap headto-head race for the title. This was done between drivers previously separated by 12 seconds.
Safety-car rules dictate that lapped cars have to drive the circuit and then rejoin the rest of the group. Masi had ordered them all, but not all. Mercedes believed that Masi was only trying to pit Verstappen against Hamilton.
Mercedes claims Michael Masi is a race director who violated F1’s Abu Dhabi rules
Team Verstappen could be brought up in Belgium GP, where he won the race with half the points. He was only two laps ahead of a safety car and his overall win put him ahead of Hamilton.
Hamilton and Verstappen would have stayed together, which was what happened farther back in the field. Verstappen wouldn’t have made it through the traffic on the time allotted. Mercedes points out a rule which states lapped cars are ‘will need’ to be unlapped.
A second point of dispute is the release of the safety car following the unlapping.
Although it is expected that the car departs at the conclusion of the ‘following lap’, there were only two laps left so the cars would be following the safety car until the chequered flag.
The race could start again, but Hamilton would win the race.
Some doubt whether Formula One will reverse Abu Dhabi’s decision.
Mercedes is asking the FIA for a change in the race classification, because Hamilton would have won if they had followed the rules.
They don’t propose that the race be rerun, or that only 57 out of 58 laps should be considered.
F1 sources are still skeptical that the results will be reversed, considering the embarrassment the sport would experience, as its title presentation and ceremony were exposed to be a fraud.
Another blow is the rule prohibiting a hearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport. This means Mercedes’s challenge will not be heard by any other panel than the FIA Paris offices.
Verstappen took the championship title after an intense battle for Hamilton’s attention.