Checo Pérez won brilliantly this Sunday at the Monaco Grand Prix, the seventh round of the 2022 Formula 1 season, but in the midst of the celebrations there was news that raised doubts in the Red Bull camp.
Ferrari lodged an official protest with the stewards because it understood that both Sergio Pérez and Max Verstappen had broken the regulations by driving over the yellow line out of the pits after completing their stops on lap 22.
Both the Mexican and the Dutch driver were summoned to testify before the stewards at 19:15, local time, to analyze and explain what happened.
However, the representative of “Checo”, Luis Aguirre , wrote on Twitter before it was official that Ferrari’s protest did not prosper before the authorities, so the result of the race remains unchanged, with Pérez as the winner, followed by Carlos Sainz and Verstappen on the podium positions.
More than an hour later, the FIA finally published the ruling, making it official that Ferrari’s protest had been rejected “as unfounded”.
After a meeting of race management, stewards, a representative from Red Bull (Jonathan Wheatley) and another from Ferrari (the Spanish Iñaki Rueda), the following was stipulated: “All parties agreed that car #1 had part of its tire front left and rear left on the left side of the yellow pit lane.”
“All parties agreed that the majority of the front left and rear left tire on that car remained on the yellow line.
And that therefore, the conclusions of the Commissioners were the following:
“1. Article 2.1 of the 2022 Formula 1 Sporting Regulations states that “All…stewards…undertake to observe all the provisions of the…Code,….the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations…”.
2. This obliges the Clerk of the Course (and the Stewards) to comply with said regulations.
3. Consequently, the Notes issued by the Clerk of the Course cannot contradict the Code or the Sporting Regulations of Formula 1.
4. Article 5 c) of Chapter IV of Annex L of the Code establishes that at the exit of the pits a car “must not cross the line”.
5. In that case, the car did not “cross” the line; to do so, he would have needed to have a full wheel to the left of the yellow line.
6. Consequently, the driver did not violate the relevant section of the Sporting Code and that takes precedence over any interpretation of the Race Notes.
Therefore, the Protest is dismissed and the Protest Fee is forfeited.”
