The FIA has confirmed Lewis Hamilton’s team have submitted a scrutineering declaration after failing to do so at the original required time.
Race director Niels Wittich instructed all teams yesterday to declare in their pre-race car scrutineering submissions that their drivers would obey two regulations concerning their state of dress while driving. The restrictions, imposed for safety reasons, require drivers to wear only FIA-approved underwear and forbid them from wearing jewellery.FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer noted in his report on Friday that Mercedes had not done this for Hamilton.
“The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team has not confirmed for his driver Lewis Hamilton in the submitted self-scrutineering sheet, that he is complying with the requirement to not wear any jewellery, in the form of body piercing or metal neck chains or watches,” stated Bauer.
The requirement to submit a scrutineering declaration form is stipulated in article 31.1 of the sporting regulations. Bauer announced that Mercedes had failed to submit a completed declaration for Hamilton by 12.22pm local time, but later confirmed that the team did prior to the start of the first practice session.
Lewis Hamilton criticised the FIA’s clampdown on the wearing of jewellery, saying the sport’s governing body has “bigger fish to fry” at the moment.
Sebastian Vettel said he feels the action is personally motivated against his rival.
“I think it is a bit unnecessary to blow this topic up,” said the Aston Martin driver. “Probably at this stage it’s more of a personal thing and I feel in a way targeted to Lewis. We spoke about underpants as well but really is that the most exciting thing we can talk about?
“So in a way there’s a concern for safety obviously if you have stuff and if the car does catch fire it would be unpleasant. But on the other hand to some degree it’s personal freedom and we are old enough to make our choices outside the car, we should be old enough also to make our choices inside the car.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2022 Miami Grand Prix
- Why TecPro barriers weren’t used at Miami chicane where Sainz and Ocon crashed
- Miami’s track surface is ‘a safety issue and does not offer good racing’ – Russell
- Miami Grand Prix draws F1’s largest live US television audience
- Alpine complain they had no say over penalty which cost Alonso points
- Red Bull wary of Ferrari’s high-speed cornering strength in Barcelona
Harry Potter
6th May 2022, 18:45
FIA haven’t confirmed Hamilton won his 8th Championship – Mercedes
#humanerrorchampion
Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
6th May 2022, 18:48
Living rent-free in your head :^)
Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
6th May 2022, 18:48
Called it!
koddamn (@gufdamm)
6th May 2022, 18:51
Majority of the comments you make are personally motivated against Hamilton. You should be empathetic. This should all make perfect sense to you.
Harry Potter
6th May 2022, 18:54
Hamilton has lived rent free in his head for 7 championships.
David BR (@david-br)
6th May 2022, 19:17
Well, it’s not as though it’s been occupied by anything else other than a vacuum during that time.
Bob C.
6th May 2022, 19:26
My gut feeling (which is so often proved wrong, but anyway) is that this is indeed aimed at someone specifically, but not Hamilton. To me it looks dead-on targeted at Toto Wolf. Demanding that the team signs off for their their star driver, who has publicly stated that he will not comply, put a real nasty squeeze on the team principal. He has very publicly sided with his driver before, and been very vocal in his public critisisms of race officials on his driver’s behalf. So, is he willing to put the entire team’s race behind this?
So, you demanded that rules should be followed as written? Fine, so how do you like them here apples?
I think HAM is being caught up in this as collateral damage. I actually feel a bit sorry for him, though I cannot quite say that I do not feel just a slight tinge of schadenfreude by seeing Toto Wolf caught by his own demands here.
Ivan Vinitskyy (@ivan-vinitskyy)
6th May 2022, 18:50
Hope he doesn’t give in.
Dex
6th May 2022, 19:05
To following simple, safety rules? What kind of battle is that?
koddamn (@gufdamm)
6th May 2022, 19:06
All rules are open to interpretation in F1.
Chris Lloyd (@chrisr1718)
6th May 2022, 19:15
It’s got nothing to do with safety. If it did, they would’ve included finger rings and bracelets as well. Think about what would’ve happen to Grosjean’s hands had he been wearing his rings in that fire.
superman
6th May 2022, 18:50
Follow the rules or don’t drive! Simple
Harry Potter
6th May 2022, 18:54
+1
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
6th May 2022, 18:57
What a dumb hill to die on.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
6th May 2022, 20:03
My thoughts exactly.
What would’ve happened to Grosjean’s hands if he’d been wearing rings? Goodness only knows.
Lewis, you’re a fantastic driver and, I believe, a good person too. Stand back and have a look at yourself because, frankly, it’s embarrassing!
Harry Potter
6th May 2022, 18:59
Hamilton – “If they stop me then so be it. We’ve got a spare driver, so we’re well prepped for the weekend. There’s lots to do in the city anyway.” Love it. The FIA lost a huge amount of respect last year, I might have cared before we gae championships aware due to human error (fact).
Harry Potter
6th May 2022, 19:02
Holy moly, Friday brain – *gave / *away
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
6th May 2022, 19:01
Seems to me that signing that document is a prerequisite to participation in this (or any) FIA Formula 1 World Championship round.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
6th May 2022, 19:06
https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110
Kyle (@hammerheadgb)
6th May 2022, 19:47
Car 44 is on the track now, so either the Technical Delegate has “confirmed to the Competitor that he is
satisfied it has been fully and correctly completed”, or Mercedes are technically in breach of this regulation.
koddamn (@gufdamm)
6th May 2022, 19:04
Can somebody confirm if these rules only apply to when getting into the car? What is the argument for driver’s not being able to wear whatever the choose outside the car?
BasCB (@bascb)
6th May 2022, 19:15
Yes, it is about the driving/being in the car due to issues with safety @gufdamm (although there are some restrictions on what they can and cannot wear during official ceremonies like the podium, podium interviews etc, but those are not safety rules)
Electroball76
6th May 2022, 19:08
The FIA are going about this all wrong. What they need to do is mandate that every driver must wear a minimum number of accessories.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
6th May 2022, 19:14
They have. Unfortunately for one hopeful participant in this weekend’s FIA Formula 1 World Championship event, the FIA have also mandated a maximum number for the pieces of jewellery to be worn in competition, and the minimum and maximum stand, identical, at 0.
David
6th May 2022, 19:26
They must wear 15 pieces of “flair”.
Dwight Yoakum (@dwightjs)
7th May 2022, 0:07
Well, ok. 15 is the minimum, okay?
Robbie (@robbie)
6th May 2022, 20:24
So there’s probably a few pieces LH will be wearing since they’re ‘welded on’ and he’ll get a little fine and we move on.
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
6th May 2022, 20:30
I wonder how many other drivers feel the same way Vettel does. As this was brought to them in a meeting, there may have been more to the presentation than we are privy to that makes Vettel feel this is targeted at Lewis and maybe that’s why Lewis is refusing. For example, earlier this week Madison Bumgarner was ejected from a baseball game and when the first base umpire was checking his hands for a foreign substance, he barely looked at the hand and instead was giving Bumgarner the stink eye the whole time. Bumgarner had a confrontation with the home plate umpire earlier in the game and the hand check and ejection was clearly retaliation. So there may be more to this than the FIA simply deciding to enforce a rule that hadn’t been enforced before. We need more data!
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
7th May 2022, 8:15
Yes this is just pure racism from the FIA. This sport is becoming more awful every season I swear.
Chris Horton
7th May 2022, 11:35
Having rules for the competitors safety is racism?
You should be ashamed of yourself. Comments like that undermine legitimate instances of racism that people experience.
Jon
6th May 2022, 21:05
This storyline is self-manufactured hype by Liberty media ahead of a very important marketing GP.
Johnny
6th May 2022, 21:17
The FiA and F1 would like to be done with the Hamilton Mercedes era asap. I can see why it would be easier for them wishing to move on from last year’s embarrassment that way.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
6th May 2022, 21:58
This is not funny and Sebastian Vettel has been really pathetic lately. Imagine catching the same fire Grosjean caught in your sensitive parts ?
Adam1
7th May 2022, 7:42
I don’t see how Hamilton really has a case after the Abu Dhabi fall out. Yes they might be “gunning” for him, but if you were them wouldn’t you go after the guy who demands rules are applied properly then a few months later continues to flout rules that suit him just because he always has?
If Lewis is doing this as a protest then surely there must be “bigger fish to fry”