Mercedes presented the innovative steering solution in the pre-season tests and enabled drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas to adjust the toe angle of the car from the cockpit using their steering wheel.
Many of Mercedes’ competitors were known to question the legality of the system, which was already banned for the 2021 season.
Red Bull had planned to protest before the race was canceled at the Australian Grand Prix and hinted last week that the controversy could reappear in Austria. After Mercedes used DAS for its two cars in FP1 and FP2 at the Red Bull Ring on Friday, Red Bull officially protested to the stewards in accordance with two articles of the technical regulations.
At 12:31 p.m. in Austria, the stewards made a statement confirming that they had rejected Red Bull’s protest.
Red Bull engineers Adrian Newey and Paul Monaghan argued at the hearing that DAS allowed the driver’s movement as a means of changing the car’s aerodynamic properties and that it was part of the suspension system.
Mercedes countered this by arguing DAS’s limitations in influencing the suspension system and that a conventional steering system is also able to adjust the toe angle of cars by changing the steering angle.
But the stewards threw the protest back after assuming that DAS was part of the steering system – even though they found it was “not conventional” – and could not be considered part of the car’s suspension.
“The stewards see DAS as a legitimate part of the steering system and therefore as satisfactory the relevant rules regarding suspension or aerodynamic influence, ”concludes the stewards’ report.
“According to the stewards, the DAS system is physically and functionally part of the steering system.
“As such, it benefits from the implicit exceptions to certain suspension rules that apply to steering.”
The decision means that Mercedes can continue to use DAS for its cars until the last training and qualifying session in Austria on Saturday.
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