
Formula 1 governing body FIA admits that they were not examine the onboard camera footage of Max Verstappen turn 4 incidents with his F1 title rival Lewis Hamilton in the São Paulo Grand Prix ahead of exclude an investigation.
Interlagos dominant ace Hamilton tried his first effort to overtaking Verstappen in the second half of the race at turn 4, but it’s resulted both drivers’ went off the track and re-join from the dirty part of the track. Following the incident race stewards launched investigation and F1 race director Michael Masi say that was race incident.
But, the F1 audiences and Mercedes fans naturally have doubts something wired happened at Turn 4, because F1 didn’t broadcast the onboard footage from Verstappen’s car, which would have made everything crystal clear – had we seen the Dutch driver steer towards Hamilton’s Mercedes, that is.
Asked by the source Autosport if the FIA had access to the pictures when making the call during the race, Masi confirmed that it did not.
“No, it was only the cameras that are broadcast, as I’ve said before, which is basically what we have access to throughout,” Masi said.
“The forward facing, the 360, there’s all of the camera angles that we don’t get live that will be downloaded and we’ll have a look at them post-race,” he said. “It hasn’t been obtained yet. It’s been requested.”
Masi agreed that the forward facing footage could be a smoking gun, if, for example, it shows Verstappen steering towards Hamilton.
“Could be, absolutely. Possibly. But no, we didn’t have access to it. And obviously, it’s being downloaded. And once the commercial rights holder supplies it, we’ll have a look.”
When the source asked if there was any inconsistency with other recent decisions, Masi replied: “I’d disagree that it’s inconsistent. You have a look at it, and as I’ve said many times before, you judge the incident on its merits, and you have a look at all of it.
“And let’s not forget, we have the overall let them race principles, and looking at it all, with all of the angles that we had available, that philosophy was adopted.”
Autosport asked why let them race applied in this case he said: “I think if you look proximity of the cars, getting into the apex, where it is, nature of the corner. The fact that both cars went off, neither car lost position or anything like that, that was probably the general view of it.”
When it was indicated that Hamilton would have made the corner had he not been edged wide by Verstappen Masi added: “If you sort of keep going a little bit further, they’re give or take about side on side. So I think for the benefit of everyone, it was let them race, so let them race.”