Stewards confirm review of Perez-Massa collision

2014 Canadian Grand Prix

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The Austrian Grand Prix stewards have agreed to review the collision between Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa which occurred on the final lap of the Canadian Grand Prix.

Force India requested the review after informing the stewards they had been unable to consult with their driver before the original investigation as he had been taken to hospital for checks.

Perez was handed a five-place grid penalty for this weekend’s race for his role in the accident. Force India also claimed they did not know he could be charged for the accident when they spoke to the stewards in Canada.

Force India made their application for a new hearing under article 13.10.1 of the International Sporting Code, which states that if “a new element is discovered, whether or not the stewards have
already given a ruling, these stewards or, failing this, those designated by the FIA, must meet on a date agreed amongst themselves, summoning the party or parties concerned to hear any relevant explanations and to judge in the light of the facts and elements brought before them”.

The new hearing will be held at 4pm today to review the original verdict of the Canadian Grand Prix stewards. The Austrian Grand Prix stewards issued the following statement:

Request by Sahara Force India F1 Team for a review under article 13.10 of the International Sporting Code.

Having received a request for a review of the stewards’ decision in Document 44 of June 8, 2014, and having been designated by the FIA to determine this matter, the stewards of the 2014 Austrian
Grand Prix heard from team representatives and the driver of car 11 [Perez].

The team submitted that it was unaware when summonsed to the original hearing that its driver was potentially to be charged with causing a collision and that because it had been unable to communicate with the driver after the collision, as the driver was in hospital, they attended the original hearing without input from the driver as to the cause of the incident.

Further the team submitted that it had now had the opportunity to speak with the driver on the circumstances leading to the incident under review and had been able to consider the relevant telemetry. The team requested that these new elements, namely the verbal testimony of its driver and the relevant telemetry be considered, and that the decision in document 44 be reviewed.

Having considered the matter, in accordance with article 13.10.2, we exercise our discretion and determine that new element(s) exist and therefore a hearing to consider the relevance and merit of the new element(s) will be convened at 1600 hrs June 20, 2014, pursuant to article 13.10.1.

We note for the record that these are exceptional circumstances, namely where the driver was taken to hospital and unable to communicate with his team or attend the hearing, and this determination is not to be considered a precedent.

2014 Canadian Grand Prix

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Image © Force India

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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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14 comments on “Stewards confirm review of Perez-Massa collision”

  1. Pretty outrageous that Perez wasn’t allowed to have his say initially. I’m all in favour of getting investigations processed as quickly as possible, but not at the expense of fairness.

  2. Just Massa is a senior driver, doesn’t mean he can say whatever he wants to someone who actually DID NOT ruin his race. And for god’s sake, why won’t anybody agree that Massa COULDN’T possibly have gotten a podium in that race?

    1. *Just because Massa

  3. I was actually going to joke that maybe the review’s “new findings” was that the stewards hadn’t looked at something. To find out it’s true is depressing. Surely if they’re going to wait until after the race, it isn’t too much to expect that they’ll wait until everything (including the drivers) is in front of them?

    We’ve made good strides with making the stewards more consistent and accountable. Things like this just lower fans’ confidence in decisions.

    1. Decision to penalize Perez was wrong in the first place. This review will correct that mistake, and improve fans confidence in the decision making process.

  4. Good to see that all involved should be able to attend this hearing. This should allow everyone an opportunity to provide useful information and data to the stewards for evaluation.

  5. I went back and forth on who is to blame and now I’m thinking it was a silly racing incident with more blame on Perez’s side. But that they didn’t even hear out all people involved is pretty sad, such decisions shouldn’t be made without having really all the evidence and witness reports.

  6. At that point in the race, ya gotta make yourself wide, just not late to make yourself wide.

    It was a failed block. I never blocked until it was late in the race, and I never took anybody out while trying to block.

    After the Monaco/Raikkonen incident, I could care less. And yeah, it’s dangerous out there and a punch may make sure that kinda crap don’t happen. It looks real flowery from a fans point of view, but if you have ever raced, that guy needs a punch and I don’t care what the nice people say. He took someones life in his hands. A punch would be minimal. I could care less about pomp and circumstance and how someone should act for the flowery people. Racing is NOT flowery. It’s war. And death can come from those kinds of mistakes. They all know what’s at stake except a few who think glory comes from a lucky stab.

  7. This should be interesting. The fact is that they didn’t speak with Massa either (he was also in the hospital). I am amazed the FI didn’t go in thinking that there was a possibility that Perez caused the accident. Pretty sloppy on their part.

    As for Perez, let’s not forget he was the driver who didn’t think he didn’t anything wrong in Abu Dhabi ‘012 who came from off the track and straight to the apex of a corner, taking out Grojean and Webber.

    As for not hearing from Perez at the last meeting before rendering a decision, I’m sure the Stewards could have figured out the position he would have taken (“that was my normal racing line” “I turned before braking” “I was making a move on Vettel” etc.). Drivers get handed well deserved penalties (and undeserved ones) for which they literally think they did nothing wrong. Driver input is important, but it’s clearly not the only or even most significant piece of information to be considered. Also, I’m sure FI could have spoken with Perez as well if needed. It’s not like some of the stewards investigation don’t go on for a few hours.

    FI just went in to the Stewards meeting totally unprepared and got caught out. Can you imagine Ferrari or Redbull being caught out like that in a similar situation? It’s funny, we think that a .1 difference between drivers is conclusive proof that there are huge gaps between drivers, but somehow we think teams are equal (outside of Newey) in other things – like dealing with Stewards, etc.

  8. Rubbish. Massa was also at the hospital so the stewards didn’t hear him either. IF they revert their decision, it will be Williams’ and Massa’s time to ask for a review. This is a pile of rubbish. I like Massa when he is in a good day (and he was in an awesome day in that race) and I have utmost respect for Force India, but this is embarrassing.

  9. Forget about racing lines , with the speed Massa was carrying would he have made the corner? How much faster was Massa than his previous few laps….

  10. I thought it was just a racing incident or rather Massa’s fault than Perez’ fault. Having said that the experts(Stewards) know better.

    Irrespective of their upcoming decision, I am not very thrilled about Massa’s comments all through the last 2 weeks putting Perez in a bad light. Massa seems to forget that when he arrived in F1 with Sauber he was the “Crash-Baby” for a few years. Needless to say his classic and innovative ways of crashing his Ferrari into Hamilton’s Mclaren a couple of years back has not been forgotten. In that year the whole Grid was keeping 2 car lengths away from Massa !!!!

    Common Massa be a sport, People living in Glass houses don’t throw stones !!!

    1. Interesting points you bring up. I remember those days too!

    2. Yes, and despite the fact that he picked up his share of penalties for hitting Hamilton, Massa was calling for Hamilton to be banned as well. Remarkable. I think he was somewhat baited into making that comment about banning Perez, but he was free to keep his mouth shut.

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