FIA reject Ferrari's request to have Vettel's Canada penalty reviewed

It’s been a talking point for nearly two weeks now, but the stewards have spoken – for the final time – and they have decided to deny Ferrari’s request for a right of review of the decision to hand Sebastian Vettel a penalty that cost him victory in Canada…

Vettel was first to see the chequered flag in Montreal, but the five-second time penalty given to him by the stewards for rejoining the track in unsafe fashion and forcing Lewis Hamilton off track demoted him to second behind the Mercedes driver in the final classification.

After deciding not to appeal against the decision, Ferrari then moved to request a right of review, via the FIA’s International Sporting Code, which allows competitors to present new evidence not available before the end of the event.

Sporting director Laurent Mekies presented their evidence, which he described ahead of the meeting as “overwhelming”, to the same stewards at Paul Ricard in France on Friday afternoon.

After several hours of deliberation, the stewards issued a statement saying “there are no significant and relevant new elements which were unavailable to the parties at the time of the competition concerned”.

READ MORE: Ferrari ‘unhappy and disappointed’ with Canada review refusal

Ferrari presented seven pieces of evidence:

1) Analysis of the telemetry data of VET’s car, including car attitude channels
2) A video analysis of the camera views (front view, top view, onboard cameras of Vettel and Hamilton) prepared after the race
3) A video analysis performed by Karun Chandhok for Sky Sports after the race
4) A video of VET’s face camera, which was released by F1 Limited after the race
5) Post-race and video images
6) Analysis of the GPS racing line data of both Hamilton and Vettel in the Situation lap and in the previous race laps
7) Witness statement of Vettel

The stewards said pieces of evidence one, two, fifth, six and seven were in fact “available before the end of the competition”. They said the third piece of evidence, “was new but not significant and relevant as this is a personal opinion by a third party”.

And finally, the fourth piece of evidence “was new but not significant and relevant as the evidence contained in this video footage can be seen within other available video”.

As a result, the Canadian Grand Prix result remains the same, with Hamilton the victor ahead of Vettel with Charles Leclerc completing the podium.