FIA rejects Aston Martin F1 evidence
Aston Martin has failed in its bid to seek a review of Sebastian Vettel’s exclusion from second place in the Hungarian Grand Prix at an FIA hearing on Monday.
Vettel’s car failed to yield the mandatory one litre of fuel for post-race checks. Aston Martin initially claimed that telemetry showed there to be 1.44 litres more fuel in the car than the 0.3 litres pumped out. It said that a fuel system failure meant that the fuel had not been pumped into the tank where it could be accessed.
But at the hearing, the FIA denied the request to review the case because the latest indications from the team were that a mechanical problem potentially meant there was not one litre of fuel left at all. For the request to review to be accepted, Aston Martin needed to provide a ‘significant’ and ‘relevant’ new element that was discovered after the event.
The team submitted analysis from more than
100 channels of fuel systemrelated data to show that there had been a fuel system failure in Vettel’s car, whereby the air pump in the fuel cell activated a maximum output, which, by pumping air through the fuel cell, meant a significant amount of fuel was discharged from the car.
The FIA accepted that this evidence, which pointed to a malfunction of the fuel cell pressure relief value, was a new element. But in light of further investigations, it emerged that Aston Martin believes that there was actually less than one litre of fuel remaining in the car due to the fuel system problem. Therefore, the FIA felt that the new evidence was not relevant to the case.
Aston Martin team boss Otmar Szafnauer said: “That is disappointing, and we will now consider our position in respect of the full appeal process.”