MEXICO CITY — McLaren’s bid to get the stewards to review the controversial incident between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, including Norris’ penalty, from the United States Grand Prix has been dismissed.
The stewards met Friday an hour after the conclusion of FP1 in Mexico City and discussed the Woking-based team’s Right of Review. Norris was dinged for leaving the track and gaining an advantage when he overtook Verstappen late in the race outside of track limits. That moment and the subsequent penalty led to numerous drivers speaking out about the lack of clarity around racing rules, as well as a lack of consistency with the stewards.
The key to a Right of Review is that the evidence must be new, significant, relevant and unavailable to the team when the decision was made. All four criteria must be met for the stewards to revisit their decision on the penalty.
McLaren said in a statement Thursday, “We believe there is a significant and new element that was unavailable to us at the time the decision was made.”
However, the stewards determined “there is no relevant new element.”
McLaren’s evidence was the decision document. According to the stewards, the claim “contained a statement that was incorrect and that evidenced an objective, measurable and provable error had been made by the stewards.” The decision document from the U.S. Grand Prix read that “Car 4 was overtaking Car 1 on the outside but was not level with Car 1 at the apex.”
McLaren felt this was an error because it “had evidence that Car 4 had already overtaken and was ahead of Car 1 at the braking zone,” per the stewards’ decision Friday.
McLaren argued this was technically significant, relevant, new and unavailable to the Woking-based team at the time. However, the stewards focused on the element of relevance when reaching their decision. The stewards explained that arguing there had been an error in the initial decision document was “unsustainable,” nor did it count as a new element, causing the right of review to be dismissed.
Norris’ penalty was viewed as controversial because of Verstappen’s driving, which has been questioned before. Both drivers went off track with Norris making his overtake when they were outside of the track limits. Neither made the corner, and the McLaren driver was left with little room.
“He did what I guess he thought was right, I did what I thought was right,” Norris said Thursday. “I still disagree, and I think as a team, we still disagree. I think the majority of people who were watching disagreed with the penalty that I got.”
The stewards’ decision sets a precedent for hard racing and overtaking. Verstappen’s maneuver that came into question post-U.S. GP is a legal move.
“I think myself, personally, I’m really interested to see if the FIA believe and having reviewed everything again, that Max should have been penalized for what he did or not,” George Russell said Thursday before the Right of Review was submitted. “In my view, he should have been penalized, therefore there’s not really a loophole. If they say based on our regulations that he should not have been penalized, then he’s exploiting a loophole.”
The Athletic’s Luke Smith contributed to this story.
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