‘Overwhelming new evidence to support Sebastian Vettel’s case’ – Ferrari sporting director. Ferrari will meet with the stewards later today.

Scuderia Ferrari sporting director Laurent Mekies says there is “overwhelming” new evidence available to the team proving Sebastian Vettel did not breach the regulations in the lead-up to his penalty at the Canadian Grand Prix. The four-time Formula One world champion was hit with a five-second time penalty after he was adjudged to have unsafely rejoined the track while battling Lewis Hamilton for the lead in Canada two weeks ago, costing the Ferrari driver victory.

Scuderia Ferrari exercised its right to review for the stewards to take another look at the case, with a hearing to ensure the team could present new evidence supporting its case set for Friday afternoon at Paul Ricard ahead of this weekend’s French Grand Prix.

Speaking in the FIA press conference at the track shortly before the hearing, Mekies said that while Ferrari offered the stewards its full support, it was confident it had enough new evidence to support its case: “I think the first thing that I would like to underline is that we very much respect the work of the stewards,” Mekies said – “We know that’s it’s a very, very difficult job to take. It’s a complex world, complex races, and therefore we are fully supportive of what they are trying to achieve. In the aftermath of the grand prix of Canada, we had access to a number of new evidence. We looked at them, and for these reasons, we have requested the FIA’s right of review, because we believe this evidence is quite overwhelming when it comes to establishing that Sebastian did not breach any regulations. I think going any further would be inappropriate, because the hearing is this afternoon, so we’ll let it to the stewards.” – he added.

Asked if he believed the evidence was enough to overturn the ruling, Laurent Mekies said: “I think that’s very much a part where I don’t think it would be appropriate to go through it now. We are very respectful of the FIA processes, and we’ll be meeting with the stewards in an hour’s time, so we can have these discussions in a weekend.” – he concluded.

Laurent Mekies will be Ferrari’s representative at the stewards’ hearing which begins at 2:15pm.