The FIA has confirmed Lewis Hamilton’s team have not declared he will comply with the requirement not to wear jewellery while driving this weekend.
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 reasons, require drivers to wear only FIA-approved underwear and forbid them from wearing jewellery.
FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer noted in his report on Friday that Mercedes had not done this for Hamilton.
“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 jewellery, 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. The FIA has not yet confirmed whether it is investigating Mercedes for a breach of that rule.
Lewis Hamilton criticised the FIA’s clampdown on the wearing of jewellery, saying the sport’s governing body has “bigger fish to fry” at the moment.
Sebastian Vettel said he feels the action is personally motivated against his rival.
“I think it is a bit 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 in a way targeted to Lewis. We spoke about underpants as well but really is that the most exciting thing we can talk about?
“So in a way there’s a concern for safety 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.”
This article will be updated
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