Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Miami International Autodrome, 2022

Mercedes haven’t confirmed Hamilton will obey jewellery rules at Miami GP – FIA

2022 Miami Grand Prix

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The FIA has confirmed Lewis Hamilton’s team have submitted a scrutineering declaration after failing to do so at the original required time.

Race director Niels Wittich instructed all teams yesterday to declare in their pre-race car scrutineering submissions that their drivers would obey two regulations concerning their state of dress while driving. The restrictions, imposed for safety reasons, require drivers to wear only FIA-approved underwear and forbid them from wearing jewellery.

FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer noted in his report on Friday that Mercedes had not done this for Hamilton.

“The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team has not confirmed for his driver Lewis Hamilton in the submitted self-scrutineering sheet, that he is complying with the requirement to not wear any jewellery, in the form of body piercing or metal neck chains or watches,” stated Bauer.

The requirement to submit a scrutineering declaration form is stipulated in article 31.1 of the sporting regulations. Bauer announced that Mercedes had failed to submit a completed declaration for Hamilton by 12.22pm local time, but later confirmed that the team did prior to the start of the first practice session.

Lewis Hamilton criticised the FIA’s clampdown on the wearing of jewellery, saying the sport’s governing body has “bigger fish to fry” at the moment.

Sebastian Vettel said he feels the action is personally motivated against his rival.

“I think it is a bit unnecessary to blow this topic up,” said the Aston Martin driver. “Probably at this stage it’s more of a personal thing and I feel in a way targeted to Lewis. We spoke about underpants as well but really is that the most exciting thing we can talk about?

“So in a way there’s a concern for safety obviously if you have stuff and if the car does catch fire it would be unpleasant. But on the other hand to some degree it’s personal freedom and we are old enough to make our choices outside the car, we should be old enough also to make our choices inside the car.”

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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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34 comments on “Mercedes haven’t confirmed Hamilton will obey jewellery rules at Miami GP – FIA”

  1. Harry Potter
    6th May 2022, 18:45

    FIA haven’t confirmed Hamilton won his 8th Championship – Mercedes

    #humanerrorchampion

    1. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
      6th May 2022, 18:48

      Living rent-free in your head :^)

  2. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
    6th May 2022, 18:48

    Sebastian Vettel said he feels the action is personally motivated against his rival.

    Called it!

    1. Majority of the comments you make are personally motivated against Hamilton. You should be empathetic. This should all make perfect sense to you.

      1. Harry Potter
        6th May 2022, 18:54

        Hamilton has lived rent free in his head for 7 championships.

        1. Well, it’s not as though it’s been occupied by anything else other than a vacuum during that time.

    2. My gut feeling (which is so often proved wrong, but anyway) is that this is indeed aimed at someone specifically, but not Hamilton. To me it looks dead-on targeted at Toto Wolf. Demanding that the team signs off for their their star driver, who has publicly stated that he will not comply, put a real nasty squeeze on the team principal. He has very publicly sided with his driver before, and been very vocal in his public critisisms of race officials on his driver’s behalf. So, is he willing to put the entire team’s race behind this?

      So, you demanded that rules should be followed as written? Fine, so how do you like them here apples?

      I think HAM is being caught up in this as collateral damage. I actually feel a bit sorry for him, though I cannot quite say that I do not feel just a slight tinge of schadenfreude by seeing Toto Wolf caught by his own demands here.

  3. Hope he doesn’t give in.

    1. To following simple, safety rules? What kind of battle is that?

      1. All rules are open to interpretation in F1.

      2. It’s got nothing to do with safety. If it did, they would’ve included finger rings and bracelets as well. Think about what would’ve happen to Grosjean’s hands had he been wearing his rings in that fire.

  4. Follow the rules or don’t drive! Simple

  5. Harry Potter
    6th May 2022, 18:54

    +1

  6. What a dumb hill to die on.

    1. My thoughts exactly.

      What would’ve happened to Grosjean’s hands if he’d been wearing rings? Goodness only knows.

      Lewis, you’re a fantastic driver and, I believe, a good person too. Stand back and have a look at yourself because, frankly, it’s embarrassing!

  7. Harry Potter
    6th May 2022, 18:59

    Hamilton – “If they stop me then so be it. We’ve got a spare driver, so we’re well prepped for the weekend. There’s lots to do in the city anyway.” Love it. The FIA lost a huge amount of respect last year, I might have cared before we gae championships aware due to human error (fact).

    1. Harry Potter
      6th May 2022, 19:02

      Holy moly, Friday brain – *gave / *away

  8. Seems to me that signing that document is a prerequisite to participation in this (or any) FIA Formula 1 World Championship round.

    1. 31.3 No car may take part in the Event until the declaration described in Article 31.1 has been
      submitted, and the Technical Delegate has confirmed to the Competitor that he is
      satisfied it has been fully and correctly completed.

      https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110

      1. Kyle (@hammerheadgb)
        6th May 2022, 19:47

        Car 44 is on the track now, so either the Technical Delegate has “confirmed to the Competitor that he is
        satisfied it has been fully and correctly completed”, or Mercedes are technically in breach of this regulation.

  9. Can somebody confirm if these rules only apply to when getting into the car? What is the argument for driver’s not being able to wear whatever the choose outside the car?

    1. Yes, it is about the driving/being in the car due to issues with safety @gufdamm (although there are some restrictions on what they can and cannot wear during official ceremonies like the podium, podium interviews etc, but those are not safety rules)

  10. Electroball76
    6th May 2022, 19:08

    The FIA are going about this all wrong. What they need to do is mandate that every driver must wear a minimum number of accessories.

    1. They have. Unfortunately for one hopeful participant in this weekend’s FIA Formula 1 World Championship event, the FIA have also mandated a maximum number for the pieces of jewellery to be worn in competition, and the minimum and maximum stand, identical, at 0.

    2. They must wear 15 pieces of “flair”.

      1. Well, ok. 15 is the minimum, okay?

  11. So there’s probably a few pieces LH will be wearing since they’re ‘welded on’ and he’ll get a little fine and we move on.

  12. I wonder how many other drivers feel the same way Vettel does. As this was brought to them in a meeting, there may have been more to the presentation than we are privy to that makes Vettel feel this is targeted at Lewis and maybe that’s why Lewis is refusing. For example, earlier this week Madison Bumgarner was ejected from a baseball game and when the first base umpire was checking his hands for a foreign substance, he barely looked at the hand and instead was giving Bumgarner the stink eye the whole time. Bumgarner had a confrontation with the home plate umpire earlier in the game and the hand check and ejection was clearly retaliation. So there may be more to this than the FIA simply deciding to enforce a rule that hadn’t been enforced before. We need more data!

    1. Yes this is just pure racism from the FIA. This sport is becoming more awful every season I swear.

      1. Chris Horton
        7th May 2022, 11:35

        Having rules for the competitors safety is racism?

        You should be ashamed of yourself. Comments like that undermine legitimate instances of racism that people experience.

  13. This storyline is self-manufactured hype by Liberty media ahead of a very important marketing GP.

  14. The FiA and F1 would like to be done with the Hamilton Mercedes era asap. I can see why it would be easier for them wishing to move on from last year’s embarrassment that way.

  15. We spoke about underpants as well but really is that the most exciting thing we can talk about?

    This is not funny and Sebastian Vettel has been really pathetic lately. Imagine catching the same fire Grosjean caught in your sensitive parts ?

  16. I don’t see how Hamilton really has a case after the Abu Dhabi fall out. Yes they might be “gunning” for him, but if you were them wouldn’t you go after the guy who demands rules are applied properly then a few months later continues to flout rules that suit him just because he always has?

    If Lewis is doing this as a protest then surely there must be “bigger fish to fry”

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