Formula 1: FIA never had any intention to review Sebastian Vettel’s penalty

As expected, the FIA illustrated that they never had any intention to review the penalty that took away what would have been Sebastian Vettel’s first victory of the 2019 Formula 1 season.

Ever since Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was issued a five-second time penalty for an “unsafe” reentry onto the track ahead of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton late in the Canadian Grand Prix two weekends ago, stripping him from what would have been his first Formula 1 victory since last August’s Belgian Grand Prix, Ferrari had been intent on challenging this penalty.

Despite the fact that they did not appeal this penalty after first revealing that they would do so and then announcing their decision to do so, Ferrari made clear that they still planned to challenge it via “right of review”, and they did just that by submitting a request for a review to the FIA earlier this week.

The Canadian Grand Prix race stewards reconvened earlier today at Circuit Paul Ricard ahead of this weekend’s French Grand Prix at the track.

Despite Ferrari’s claim that they had “overwhelming” new evidence to prove that the 31-year-old German was the real victor of the 70-lap race around the 14-turn, 2.71-mile (4.361-kilometer) Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the FIA stated that most of their evidence was not new.

Additionally, the evidence that the FIA admitted was new, they brushed off as “insignificant”.

Shocking.

As a result, Hamilton kept his 3.658-second victory over Vettel in second place despite the fact that Vettel won the race by 1.342 seconds over the 34-year-old Briton.

Here are the seven pieces of evidence that Ferrari submitted, according to F1.

"1) Analysis of the telemetry data of VET’s car, including car attitude channels2) A video analysis of the camera views (front view, top view, onboard cameras of Vettel and Hamilton) prepared after the race3) A video analysis performed by Karun Chandhok for Sky Sports after the race4) A video of VET’s face camera, which was released by F1 Limited after the race5) Post-race and video images6) Analysis of the GPS racing line data of both Hamilton and Vettel in the Situation lap and in the previous race laps7) Witness statement of Vettel"

Numbers 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 were written off as being “available before the end of the competition”.

While this cannot be proven, it is highly doubtful that Ferrari simply produced the exact same regurgitated material that has been on display for the last 12 days to prove their point. This appears to be a case of the FIA simply downplaying what was actually new evidence and making it out to be the same old, same old — even though the “same old” should have been enough to vindicate the four-time champion to begin with.

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Number 3 was written off as being “new but not significant and relevant as this is a personal opinion by a third party”, an explanation that, in itself, makes the FIA a giant laughing stock.

Translation: “We make the rules and nobody else knows anything about racing.”

Notice how they didn’t state that said explanation by a “third party” was inaccurate with the rule book? No, it is just “irrelevant” because it wasn’t a race steward doing the analysis. All hail the FIA.

Finally, number 4 was written off as being “new but not significant and relevant as the evidence contained in this video footage can be seen within other available video”.

So it’s new, but it’s not new…or is it?

FIA logic: write it off as “not significant and relevant” and be done with it.

This all points to one idea: the FIA never, ever, ever had any intention of reversing Vettel’s penalty, which was actually quite clear from the start given the fact that the old evidence should have resulted in Vettel being declared the race winner.

All in all, the expected outcome prevailed, and as opposed to entering the 2019 Formula 1 season’s eighth race with one victory so far this season, Sebastian Vettel is still seeking his first victory in nearly 10 months. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton is set to enter this race with three consecutive victories, five victories in seven races to start the season and seven victories in the last nine races going back to last season.