Red Bull launch challenge against Lewis Hamilton’s penalty in Max Verstappen British GP crash

Red Bull have requested a review of Lewis Hamilton’s penalty in the British GP for the collision with Max Verstappen.

With Red Bull having indicated that they were considering mounting a challenge against the ruling on the incident and the 10-second penalty imposed on Hamilton, the FIA formally confirmed on Tuesday that the team had submitted a petition for a review of the July 18 incident by stewards.

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Both Red Bull and Mercedes representatives have been summoned to attend a video conference on Thursday afternoon at 3pm, the opening day of the Hungarian GP weekend.

Under the FIA’s International Sporting Code, competitors can request a right of review up to 14 days after a stewards’ ruling if “a significant and relevant new element is discovered which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned”.

Red Bull lodged their request last Friday.

After hearing representations from the teams on Thursday, stewards must then determine whether any “new element” brought forward warrants the re-opening of the case, or whether Red Bull’s challenge is thrown out.

What has been said since the incident?

Hamilton was found to have been “predominantly at fault” by stewards for causing the clash with title rival Verstappen on the opening lap at Silverstone, with the incident taking place at the near-200mph Copse corner.

Stewards have a range of penalties open to them for such incidents. A five-second time penalty is the lightest, with a 10s demotion the next strongest.

But Red Bull have argued that the sanction did not go far enough.

In a combative column on the team’s website last Friday in which they revealed the damage to Verstappen’s crashed Red Bull was £1.3m, team boss Christian Horner said: “It is no secret that we felt at the time, and still feel, that Hamilton was given a light penalty for this type of incident.”

Mercedes have maintained that Hamilton followed established overtaking guidelines in the incident and that the 10s penalty was therefore harsh. Despite the sanction, Hamilton won the British GP and cut Verstappen’s title lead to eight points.

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