Haas’ bid to review United States GP result “makes no sense” – Stella

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has spoken against rival Haas’ efforts to request a review of the result of the United States Grand Prix.

A total of 35 lap times were deleted during the race due to drivers straying beyond the boundaries of the track. Only one driver, Alexander Albon, was given a penalty for multiple track limits violations. However the stewards also noted that “whilst there might be some indication for possible track limit infringements in turn six, the evidence at hand is not sufficient to accurately and consistently conclude that any breaches occurred and therefore take no further action.”

Both Haas drivers finished outside the points at the Circuit of the Americas and both committed multiple track limits violations. However if rivals who finished ahead of them are found to have exceeded track limits even more times, they could stand to incur penalties.

However Stella does not believe the result of the race should be revisited for this reason. He said teams and drivers rely on the notifications of track limits infringements from race control to understand when they need to adjust their driving.

“During the race, you are busy with many things and the only thing we were paying attention to is the information coming from the race direction about lap time deletion, because that’s the official feedback you receive and that’s what counts,” said Stella. “You then adapt your driving, you then adapt how much you push, you adapt your racing with the information you have.

“So I think it makes no sense to revisit in hindsight because had you had information, all competitors could have adapted what they did. So this is certainly not something that you can act upon in hindsight because it does affect what you do live, just in my view.”

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He conceded Haas “have the right to request” a review under the regulations, “but I think what we need to work is just a more robust way of determining track limits and policing it.

“Then once an event is gone, it’s finished, then we move on to the next.”

Only one McLaren driver finished the United States Grand Prix, Lando Norris, who came second and had two lap times deleted for track limits violations. However during the Mexican Grand Prix weekend Norris admitted he had exceeded track limits at turn six during the race at times because he believed the FIA was not able to monitor the corner.

“In general, turn six, I did it as well, to be honest,” said Norris. “It’s a corner I knew they couldn’t penalise me because they set the precedent in previous tracks of if you can’t reasonably see it, you’re going to get away with it.”

Aston Martin succeeded in forcing a review of track limits decisions following the Austrian Grand Prix in July, which led to 12 further penalties being issued to eight drivers.

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