Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin, Hungaroring, 2021

Vettel disqualification hearing to take place on Monday

2021 Hungarian Grand Prix

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A hearing to decide whether Sebastian Vettel’s disqualification from the Hungarian Grand Prix will be reviewed is to take place on Monday, the FIA confirmed.

Aston Martin announced yesterday it had formally requested a review of Vettel’s disqualification.

Their driver was originally classified in second place, equalling the team’s best result of the season. Vettel was disqualified when the stewards were only able to obtain a 300ml sample of fuel from his car, significantly less than the litre required by the rules.

The FIA confirmed Aston Martin officially requested the review on Wednesday. “The team manager and such witnesses as the competitor may request, up to three attendees in total including the team manager, are required to appear via video conference at 15:00 hrs CEST on Monday, 9 August 2021,” confirmed the stewards.

In order for the review to go ahead, the stewards must receive significant and relevant new information which they did not have at the time of their original decision. If a review goes ahead the stewards may decide to amend their original decision.

Aston Martin maintains Vettel’s car contained more than enough fuel to provide the required sample, though efforts to extract it at the time were unsuccessful.

Vettel’s disqualification cost Aston Martin 18 points and prevented them overtaking AlphaTauri for sixth place in the constructors championship. It also had a bearing on the fight for the drivers championship title, as Lewis Hamilton gained two more points than Max Verstappen.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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21 comments on “Vettel disqualification hearing to take place on Monday”

  1. **crosses fingers**
    Hopefully the outcome is a positive one for the team formerly known as Jordan.

    1. Jonathan Parkin
      6th August 2021, 18:38

      It’s not the team formerly known as Jordan though. That team ceased to be when Lawrence Stroll bought it and it became Racing Point because he could only buy the assets of the team not its entry. Hence why Force India lost all it’s points and Racing Point entered the Constructors standings as a new team

    2. @thespuditron

      Hopefully the outcome is a positive one for the team formerly known as Race India ;)

      @Jonathan Parkin

      “It’s not the team formerly known as Jordan though. That team ceased to be…..because he could only buy the assets of the team not its entry.” = semantics

      Other than the paperwork and new owner; It’s the same people, facilities and equipment. Formerly known as Jordan, formerly known as Force India.

      1. I partially stand corrected:

        Very first paragraph from the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Grand_Prix

        Jordan Grand Prix was a Formula One constructor that competed from 1991 to 2005. The team was named after Irish businessman and founder Eddie Jordan. Jordan and his team were well known for an easygoing attitude combined with fiercely competitive spirit which added colour and character to Formula One in the 1990s. The team was based at Silverstone, UK but raced with an Irish licence.

        In early 2005, the team was sold to Midland Group, who competed for one final season as ‘Jordan’, before renaming the team as MF1 Racing for the 2006 season, before being sold later in 2006 to Dutch car manufacturer Spyker to become Spyker F1 for 2007, and then sold again to become Force India in 2008. In 2018, as a result of the financial collapse of the Force India team, and its subsequent buyout by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll, the team’s FIA entry was not transferred, and the Jordan Grand Prix’s original entry was finally excluded from the sport.

        So the original entry no longer exists, but as @redpill says, it’s the same people (a lot of them remain probably), facilities and equipment.

        So, I’ll still throw my support to them. 👌🏻

  2. Would love to be able to be a spectator to that video conference!

  3. Sergey Martyn
    6th August 2021, 18:38

    God save the queen Lewis! Stewards are ripping their asses in a shape of Britain flag pattern.

    1. Hey you, how’s it going in the RAF?

  4. Mark McCubbin
    6th August 2021, 18:43

    Maybe they got Albon to drive round the track 70 times in a 2 year old Racing Point…

    I do hope Vettel gets his points back though. He deserves them after the hammering from the media he has been getting over the last couple of years. But at least he’s proved he’s still got it regardless of whether he gets the points back or not.

    1. Hulkenberg if anything, this is aston martin, not red bull.

    2. And yes, at least 3 good races already, seems better than 2019-2020 vettel.

  5. @keithcollantine I think it has been a decade since DRS was introduced. This mid season break would be a good time to have an article on the goods and bads of DRS in F1.

  6. @hatebreeder I think he did one a couple of months ago. I’ll have a hunt for it.

  7. Appealing FIA usually means harsher penalties as that means doubting the commissariat and that is obviously damaging their reputation. At least it was thus in the Mosley era, but I suspect the mindset is still there.

  8. I still think this is fruitless unless they can show that the FIA tech did not follow correct procedure when extracting the sample.
    As far as I’m aware, there’s a defined procedure and the teams are very aware of that procedure so as to ensure they don’t fail this test. I though also that a sample is extracted from all cars at the end of the race, not randomly, so it’s going to be very difficult indeed for the result to be anything other than the DQ stands.

    1. F1oSaurus (@)
      7th August 2021, 18:22

      @dbradock Maybe if they can “prove” the pump failed, they can be allowed to repair it?

      1. From what I understood following the event and DQ, that was the case. They just couldn’t get the required volume of fuel out of the tank. It was there, they just couldn’t get it pumped out.
        Problem is “Rules is Rules” and the FIA is not one for bending the “Rules”.
        While I would like to see the DQ overturned, the odds against that will be overwhelming. Not going to happen.

  9. Well, Otmar Szafnauer suggested that the pump had failed. What I can’t understand is why the regulations do not predict this simple thing and they don’t even allow teams to check whether that device is working properly. Seems rather unfair to me. I don’t know if this can stand as “significant new evidence” but this is a serious inconsistency within the regulations.

  10. They should stand down. It was foolish negligence not to check the fuel levels.

    At least One liter of fuel should remain to represent that the bulk of fuel was being used in the engine. This is to prevent cheating. It’s not in order to get enough for sampling.

    Imagine driving around with an extra 1 liter bladder of “legal fuel” while the rest of the tank has the “cheater fuel” in it. It would be too much of weight penalty and volume compromise to have an extra separate tank of this size.

    Aston should simply accept their error and move one. Seb started second and was never going to pass unless Ocon made a mistake. They should have told him to save fuel and attack in the last ten laps.

    1. @david-beau The thing is, according to FIAs own fuel flow meter (admittedly together with the amount the team claims went in), there should be around 1.7 litres of fuel there. Either something is up with the fuel flow meter, or a pump has broken.

      I’m not sure that it matters, though. The rules doesn’t seem to care why the fuel can’t be extracted.

  11. F1oSaurus (@)
    8th August 2021, 8:44

    Are they also going to discuss if it makes more sense to take the fuel samples before the race rather than after?

    Or are they afraid that teams like say Red Bull will inject the performance enhancing chemicals during the race? Seeing how they passed the test so after that it’s not cheating anymore anyway.

Comments are closed.