The FIA has announced that members of the Aston Martin team are requested to appear in front of a video teleconference at 3pm CEST on Monday 9 August to discuss the case.
Aston Martin believes that it has discovered ‘significant new evidence’ that was not available at the time that Vettel was excluded from the results of the Hungaroring race.
Vettel had finished second to Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, but a post-race inspection of his car found that it did not have the mandatory minimum one-litre of fuel that is required for the FIA to conduct legality checks.
The team was adamant that its calculations from fuel-flow meters show there was plenty of fuel on board the car to pass the checks, but it was just a matter of being able to extract it.
In light of the Aston complaints, the FIA opted to impound Vettel’s car and transport it to its technical facility in France so it can be further inspected if necessary.
The team’s data indicated that given the amount of fuel in the car at the start, and what has been logged as used by the FIA’s fuel-flow meters, there should have been 1.74 litres left in the tank.
Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR21, 2nd position, is cheered over the line by his team
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
However only 0.3 litres could be pumped out by the FIA after the GP, leaving 1.44 litres unaccounted for.
Team principal Otmar Szafnauer told Autosport on Sunday evening that the team believes that the lift pump in the car had failed, compromising efforts to get fuel out of the car.
As well as pushing for a right to review based on the significant new evidence that has been discovered, Aston Martin has also lodged a separate appeal over the matter.
It’s believed that the appeal could focus in part on the team being allowed to replace what it thinks is a broken lift pump with an identical new one, and thus having another go at getting the fuel out of the car.
The FIA hearing on Monday will first establish if the fresh evidence that Aston Martin has uncovered will be accepted as grounds to look at the penalty once again.
Only if the stewards are convinced the evidence is significant and relevant, plus has been discovered, will it then hold a fresh hearing to look at the specific case.
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