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Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said the team had consulted lawyers about their situation and were in conversation with the FIA.
Wolff said: “We’ve been on the phone with our lawyers to see what we can do for George. A drive-through, if it doesn’t happen at the end, is the equivalent of 20 seconds of race time. What does 20 seconds of race time mean for his results?
“Do we think we actually have a position, a chance to reverse the result? I don’t think so, but we have to give it up if we see there’s even a millimeter of chance to do it and get him back to what he was before.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said it was a “very complex case and we think we should consider appealing”.
The situation raised the possibility that Russell could lose the championship as a result of an error by the race officials.
But there are already precedents for such incidents.
In Abu Dhabi in 2021, race director Michael Massi misapplied the rules during a safety-car period at the end of the race, and his actions directly led to Lewis Hamilton being overtaken by Max Verstappen on the final lap and the championship going from the Briton to the Dutchman.
Mercedes challenged the decision at the time, but their protest was rejected.
There were questions about how the FIA handled that scene that day, especially since it was later admitted that Masi had made a “human error” and was dismissed.
But the stewards realized that there was nothing in the rules that they could change the outcome.
In this case, there appears to have been a series of communication failures within the FIA and between the official timekeepers provided by the FIA and commercial rights holder F1.
Teams raised the issue of pit-lane speed limits over the weekend and their comments were ignored.
These conversations, it seems, did not go to the stewards or the timekeepers.
And remarkably, when the stewards asked the race director during the race if there were any concerns about measuring pit-lane limits, they were told there weren’t, even though there were people in the FIA who were aware of the concerns.
The situation also raises issues about how teams react to race penalties in the future. Many – such as pit-lane speed limits – cannot be appealed against by regulation. Will the teams now ignore them all and fight after race?
