Christian Horner and Toto Wolff united against social media FIA influence

Toto Wolff and Christian Horner — Photo: © LAT Images

Formula 1

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Horner and Wolff united against social media FIA influence

Social media clips of Verstappen touching Hamilton's rear wing in Brazil roused suspicions

Sam Hall

Tuesday 30 November 2021 08:00

Warring team principals Christian Horner and Toto Wolff have found common ground with the pair united against social media being used as "new evidence" in F1 penalty decisions.

The FIA stewards have been questioned in recent weeks for both a perceived lack of consistency and for taking inordinate amounts of time to reach a verdict.

Although race director Michael Masi has dismissed both claims, the championship-contending bosses of both Mercedes and Red Bull spoke against social media clips, such as that which appeared of Max Verstappen touching Lewis Hamilton's rear wing in Brazil, being used as grounds for an investigation or a subsequent appeal.

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Speaking before Mercedes' right to review petition was dismissed for Verstappen's on-track actions at Interlagos, Wolff said: "Nobody wants to have feeds from social media that are coming in and then you suddenly have new evidence, rightly or wrongly, so we need to clean that up.

"Hopefully in the regulations, with the consent of everybody that, first of all, the stewards need to have access to all relevant channels."

Asked of the delays to decision making and if he was concerned by conversations taking the best part of a week to be concluded, Horner added: "Well, I think that’s the danger for the FIA with this.

"If they do go down this route then every single incident from now on will be questioned. There’ll be evidence from iPhones or spectators’ phones."

Talking specifically of Verstappen's defence against Hamilton from the São Paulo Grand Prix, Horner questioned how far back the stewards' could go should 'new evidence' demonstrate potential wrongdoing.

"Of course, if you wind it back, you know you get incidents like Istanbul, you get to incidents like at Monza," he added.

"Where do you draw that line?"