F1: Mercedes Is Considering Withdrawing Its Protest Against The FIA

After the dramatic finale of the 2021 F1 season at Abu Dhabi, Mercedes launched two protests against the Red Bull of Max Verstappen. Seems like this is set to change as Mercedes has had a change of heart as per the London Times. Verstappen who was crowned world champion only managed to overtake Lewis Hamilton in the last lap of the race aided by fresh tyres and a bunched up field thanks to a safety car in lap 53 of the 58 lap race. Mercedes wasn't happy with the way FIA handled the situation of the lapped cars uncapping themselves and also felt Verstappen had overtaken Hamilton during the safety car period. 

Hence the two protests, which were dismissed by the FIA stewards after the race was concluded. The Brackley based team announced its intent to appeal the decision by the FIA for which it had 96 more hours, before the F1 ceremony where the driver and the teams are crowned. It had announced its decision after the protests were dismissed, but now the Times is reporting that Mercedes is considering withdrawing its protests which means there will also be no appeal. 

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was livid and urged the race director to overturn the result of the race  AFP
Photo Credit: AFP

Toto Wolff who is the team principal, CEO and 33 per cent owner of the F1 team along with INEOS and Daimler, the parent of the Mercedes brand, has come to realise the appeal will not be a good look for the sport. Wolff also realises as its case was stronger in the case of the FIA bungling the implementation of the regulations, it would be hard to dislodge Verstappen as world champion as he overtook Hamilton fair and square on the track. 

The FIA race director Michael Masi initially said that the lapped cars wouldn't be allowed to unlap themselves which would've meant that Verstappen and Hamilton were separated by 5 cars. But then he changed the directive and said that those 5 five cars separating the race leaders would be the only ones allowed to be unlapped. This meant Verstappen was right behind Hamilton at the start of the final lap of the race with fresh soft tyres which proved to be decisive in the championship-winning overtake. 

For Mercedes, this was a tricky situation as there wasn't enough time left in the race for all cars to be unlapped. Hence, the team took the bold call to not pit Hamilton for fresh tyres to maintain track position in the case the race ended behind the safety car. But then Masi overruled standard protocol something he was entitled to as per FIA regulations by virtue of being the race director.

In addition to this report an F1 blog, has cited sources in England that have revealed that Hamilton has asked Wolff to withdraw the appeal. F1maximaal.nl revealed “sources from the racing world in England” had told them Hamilton “is said to have asked Wolff to withdraw the protests against Verstappen and Red Bull”.