A previously rejected protest from Oliver Solberg’s Toksport team regarding a notional time assigned to WRC2 title rival Yohan Rossel will now be reheard by Rally Chile stewards, after intervention from FIA Road Sport director Andrew Wheatley.
On Friday afternoon Rally Chile stewards issued a new decision indicating the previously rejected protest by Toksport will now be reheard, following the discovery of a “significant and relevant new element which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned.”
The controversy began when, after a request by Rossel’s DG Sport team, the Citroën driver’s stage time for SS11 was reduced by 40 seconds by the stewards. Rossel claimed he had been hindered by Solberg, who had stopped mid-stage to change a puncture and resumed in front of him.
Solberg felt this improvement of 40s was excessive and his team subsequently appealed the original stewards decision, though this was initially shot down as inadmissible.
Last week Wheatley filed a petition, highlighting Article 14.1.1 of the FIA International Sporting code which allows stewards to re-examine a decision if a significant and relevant new element is discovered that was previously unavailable.
That new evidence, it transpires, is video evidence and GPS tracking data provided by the FIA, which the stewards’ report indicated “was not in the possession of the Clerk of the Course, nor of the Stewards, at the time the decision was made.”
Onboard footage showed Solberg initially resuming close in front of Rossel in the thick fog of stage 11. Approximately three minutes after encountering Solberg, Rossel ran wide and momentarily came to a complete stop in the thick fog.
The stewards decision on Friday continued: “The FIA explained the relevance of the videos and the GPS tracking data and indicated that if this information had been available at the time the request from the Competitor of Car No. 21 for a new time was received, then a different representation would have been made to the Stewards in relation to the Competitor’s request on SS11 (Lota 2). The Stewards consider the FIA’s submission to be significant and relevant.”
DG Sport and rally officials will now reconvene at a later date to rehear the original Solberg appeal.
The outcome of that appeal may significantly affect the outcome of the WRC2 title, as Rossel won the rally by 17.3s from team-mate Nikolay Gryazin, while Solberg was 26.1s off the pace in fourth place.
Demotion from first position would rule Rossel out of the title race entirely: keeping his position from Chile and winning CER would put him ahead of Solberg at season’s end, though both would need to wait to see what result Sami Pajari achieves in Japan.
If Rossel loses the lead then Nikolay Gryazin gains an outside shot at the W2RC title, though would need to win in both Central Europe and Japan to best Solberg’s final points tally.
Should Rossel lose more than 26.2s as a consequence of any appeal and fall behind Solberg, the extra points would boost Solberg’s advantage over Pajari from 15 to 18 points, meaning the Finn would need to finish second rather than third in Japan to guarantee himself the WRC2 title.
