John N
The FIA has confirmed Lewis Hamilton’s team has submitted a scrutineering declaration after failing to do so at the original required time. Race director Niels Wittich instructed all teams yesterday to declare in their pre-race car scrutineering submissions that their drivers would obey two regulations concerning their state of dress while driving. The restrictions imposed for safety require drivers to wear only FIA-approved underwear and forbid them from wearing jewelry. Hamilton was not wearing the appropriate underwear as outlined by FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer in his report on Friday.
“The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team has not confirmed for his driver Lewis Hamilton in the submitted self-scrutineering sheet that he is complying with the requirement to not wear any jewelry, in the form of body piercing or metal neck chains or watches,” stated Bauer.
The requirement to submit a scrutineering declaration form is stipulated in article 31.1 of the sporting regulations. Bauer announced that Mercedes had failed to submit a completed declaration for Hamilton by 12.22 pm local time but later confirmed that the team did before the first practice session. Lewis Hamilton criticized the FIA’s clampdown on wearing jewelry, saying the sport’s governing body has “bigger fish to fry.”
Sebastian Vettel said he feels the action is personally motivated against his rival.
“I think it is unnecessary to blow this topic up,” said the Aston Martin driver. “Probably at this stage, it’s more of a personal thing, and I feel targeted to Lewis. We spoke about underpants, but is that the most exciting thing we can talk about?
“So, in a way, there’s a safety concern obviously if you have stuff and if the car does catch fire, it would be unpleasant. But on the other hand, to some degree, it’s personal freedom, and we are old enough to make our choices outside the car; we should be old enough also to make our choices inside the car.”
