Mercedes tyre protest referred to FIA

Nico Rosberg’s victory at the Monaco Grand Prix could be in doubt after stewards referred the protest about their secret test with Pirelli to the FIA.

The FIA has subsequently released a statement and we think it will make for concerning reading in the Mercedes AMG garage.

“At the beginning of May, the FIA was asked by Pirelli if it was possible for it to carry out some tyre development testing with a team, using a current car,” the FIA statement begins. “Within the contract Pirelli has with the FIA as single supplier, there is provision for them to carry out up to 1000km of testing with any team—provided every team is offered the opportunity to do so.”

Trouble is the FIA says they haven’t had any correspondence to suggest anyone other than Mercedes was invited to the test by Pirelli. Furthermore they suggest they would be within their rights to escalate the matter to the International Tribunal.

“The Tribunal may decide to inflict penalties that would supercede any penalty the stewards of the meeting may have issued. Such procedure would be followed in pursuance of the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules,” the FIA said.

In that context, these comments from Ross Brawn, Mercedes AMG Team Princicpal, made before the three-hour stewards hearing was over, probably weren’t the smartest things to say: “Pirelli has been asking teams to help them out for 12 months and people haven’t been supporting them.

“There are lots of communications between Pirelli and teams asking them to do 1000km for them, and we obviously had an issue in Bahrain with Lewis [Hamilton] which we were quite anxious about—and we made the effort to help them. Nobody else seems to have done that.”

Hmm, Ross, that’s probably because nobody else had strung together three pole positions at the time only to suffer poor race results due to tyre degradation issues.

You can read the full FIA statement after the break.

[Source: Formula1.com | Pic: Mercedes AMG]

FIA statement regarding Mercedes protest

“At the beginning of May, the FIA was asked by Pirelli if it was possible for it to carry out some tyre development testing with a team, using a current car. Within the contract Pirelli has with the FIA as single supplier, there is provision for them to carry out up to 1000km of testing with any team – provided every team is offered the opportunity to do so.

“Pirelli and Mercedes-AMG were advised by the FIA that such a development test could be possible if carried out by Pirelli, as opposed to the team that would provide the car and driver, and that such tests would be conditional upon every team being given the same opportunity to test in order to ensure full sporting equity.

“Following this communication, the FIA received no further information about a possible test from Pirelli or from Mercedes-AMG. Furthermore, the FIA received no confirmation that all teams had been given an opportunity to take part in this test.

“In addition, with regard to the application of the sport’s rules, including principles of sporting equity, it should be remembered that the International Sporting Code provides that on the basis of a report of the stewards of the meeting, or on its own initiative, the prosecuting body of the FIA may bring a matter before the International Tribunal.

“The Tribunal may decide to inflict penalties that would supercede any penalty the stewards of the meeting may have issued. Such procedure would be followed in pursuance of the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules.”