In an attempt to get Sebastian Vettel’s third place finish from the Mexican Grand Prix reinstated, Ferrari called for the FIA to review the incident with the new evidence that Ferrari would provide. A teleconference was scheduled, but the FIA refused to further investigate the incident, leaving Vettel with his fifth place finish.
Vettel was the first driver to be penalized under the FIA’s new regulations regarding moving under braking. The incident occurred in the closing laps of the Mexican Grand Prix, when Vettel made a blocking move on Daniel Ricciardo. Vettel finished in fourth position, but was later promoted to the bottom step of the podium due to a penalty received by Max Verstappen. Following an additional post-race investigation, the stewards decided to penalize Vettel for his maneuver; handing him a 10 second time penalty and dropping him to fifth position in the race results.
Ferrari revealed that they had some new information to bring to the table and scheduled a teleconference with the stewards from the Mexican Grand Prix. In the teleconference, Ferrari argued that the regulations gave the race director the right to force any driver to give back a position, which would have nullified Max Verstappen’s alleged advantage from cutting the corner. Ferrari also provided some GPS data from the car.
The stewards refused to investigate the incident further. Besides feeling that the GPS data was not new evidence and did not help to prove that Vettel didn’t move under braking, the FIA also argued that although the race director had the right to force Verstappen to give back the position, the race director was not obligated to do so. Therefore, they decided to keep their original decision and keep the Mexican Grand Prix race results the same.
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