Why Red Bull’s appeal to review British GP first lap crash is right move

In the wake of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s first lap crash at 2021 British GP, fans, drivers and media divided about the level of penalty stewards handed to Lewis for ending his title rivals race in first lap.

Mercedes team including Lewis Hamilton, some other drivers and tv pundits called it as racing incident and Hamilton doesn’t deserve any punishment.

But FIA stewards handed 10 seconds penalty to Lewis for causing accident, then there is other group of tv pundits, Red Bull team and fans who argued that 10 seconds time penalty is very lenient, given that Max Verstappen scored zero points compared to Hamilton’s race win.

Well interestingly this is not the first time stewards were thrown under the bus for doing their job. Infamously Lewis Hamilton criticized 2018 French Grand Prix race stewards for giving 5 seconds time penalty to then his title rival Sebastian Vettel for colliding with Vallteri Bottas in the very first corner.

In that race Vettel was still able to finish ahead of Bottas despite the penalty, Hamilton said.

“Ultimately when someone destroys your race through an error and it’s only kind-of a tap on the hand really. [He’s] just allowed to come back and still finish ahead of the person that they took out, it doesn’t weigh up.

He shouldn’t really be able to finish ahead of him, because he took him out of the race.”

Then FIA Race director, Great Late Charlie Whiting said the stewards do not take the con-sequences of an incident into consideration and Vettel’s penalty was consistent with others which had been handed down before.

“[The stewards] had four options open to them,” he said. “A five-second penalty, 10-second, drive-through or stop-go. They chose the five-second penalty which is consistent with other incidents of that sort.

“If you look at the consequences of an incident then maybe one could think differently. But stewards attempt not to do that.”

Why it is important for Red Bull to appeal the Stewards decision

On Tuesday FIA revealed that Red Bull invoked their right to appeal the stewards decision on Lewis Hamilton’s British GP time penalty.

Even Red Bull know that they will not get succeed in this appeal, but if you listen to Lewis Hamilton’s post-race comments at 2021 British GP. He and Mercedes will be more aggressive in title fight going forward and they will not sit and watch Max bulling them.

this very statement by Hamilton made Red Bull to lodge the appeal.

Red Bull definitely have a better car this year compared to Mercedes and they have better driver pair also to clinch Constructors title. So Mercedes want to be more aggressive on the track to defend their title, as team started focusing on developing their 2022 car rather upgrading this year’s car.

So all of us is gonna witness more of Copse kind of incidents going forward, which is troubling for Red Bull, because 2021 is their championship to lose.

By appealing the decision, Red Bull is notifying stewards to consider more harsher penalties if things repeats again.

Why stewards should to consider circumstances also while Handing Penalties

Hamilton cut championship deficit to Max Verstappen by 25 points at British GP, 2007 and 2008 drivers championship were decided by just 1 point, while 2010 Championship was decided by 4 points.

2012 Championship was decided by 3 points, while Lewis Hamilton himself lost 2016 Championship by 5 points. So every point is valuable in title fight, Lewis and Mercedes knew that and Red Bull also knew that.

So it will be good if stewards considers the circumstances also while handing penalties will justify incidents like this.

Many might argue that Verstappen himself very aggressive and took out many other drivers in his early F1 career. But at that time he was not in the battle for Championship.