The FIA’s International Court of Appeal has determined that the improper use of the Safety Car by a race director should not be reason alone to cancel the result of a FIA sanctioned event.
A recent decision by the ICA, the governing body’s highest court, offered insight into how a potential appeal from Mercedes following the controversial 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix would be viewed.
During the second race of the International GT Open round at Spielberg in September, a second spell behind the Safety Car saw the race resume in the incorrect order after the Safety Car failed to pick up leader Karol Basz, instead regrouping the field behind Riccardo Agostini who had been running 11th.
After the race, the stewards rejected a protest of the results by Team Motopark however Motopark appealed the dismissal at the Spanish Automobile Federation’s National Court of Appeal which upheld the claim, cancelling the race steward’s decision and annulling the race result.
Optimum Motorsport appealed the annulment in front of the ICA which has since quashed the Spanish NCA’s outcome, reinstating the original race results on the basis that a race director’s improper application of the Safety Car rules was not reason alone to amend or strike a race result.
The ICA determined that the race director “did not commit a breach of the regulations” but declared that neither the race stewards or the Spanish courts had the “power to cancel the race”.
The ICA also emphasised that Stewards “could not annul results of an event when all possibilities of a fair classification were exhausted so as to avoid any unfair treatment of anyone.”
The court’s ruling was underlined by a comment stating that an attempt to annul or amend the race outcome would essentially “rectify an unfair situation by creating another unfair situation.”
The ICA’s decision to reinstate September’s result saw Estalent Racing’s Simon Reicher and Christopher Haase lose their International GT Open title to Optimum Motorsport pairing Sam de Haan and Charlie Fagg.
With parallels between the two cases, the ruling offers insight into how the ICA would have viewed any appeal from the Mercedes Formula 1 team concerning the result of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
An intense title battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen was determined on the final lap of the season following then-race director Michael Masi’s improper application of the Safety Car rules.
Having pitted under the Safety Car, Verstappen was able to pass Hamilton on the final lap of the race to seal a maiden title for the Dutchman however Mercedes lodged two protests after the race; one claiming that Masi had failed to follow established protocol in not letting all the lapped cars to unlap themselves, and one claiming Verstappen had overtaken Hamilton under Safety Car conditions.
Both of Mercedes’ protests were dismissed by the stewards resulting in the team issuing a notice of intention to appeal. The team later decided to not proceed with the appeal process although team principal Toto Wolff believed it had a “very strong case”.
“If you look at it from the legal side, if it would have been judged in a regular court, it is almost guaranteed that we would have won,” Wolff said after deciding to not appeal the result of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“We appealed in the interest of sporting fairness, and we have since been in a constructive dialogue with the FIA and F1 to create clarity for the future, so that all competitors know the rules under which they are racing, and how they will be enforced,” a Mercedes statement read at the time.
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