Sebastian Vettel’s disqualification from the Hungarian Grand Prix has been virtually upheld after Aston Martin’s petition to review the German's penalty was denied today in a hearing in Paris.

Vettel, who finished second on the road at the Hungaroring, was disqualified from the race shortly afterwards, with the FIA announcing that Vettel’s car had only got 0.3l of fuel left in the tank at the end of the race, well short of the FIA’s required 1.0l for post-race scrutineering.

Aston Martin announced their intention to appeal the decision shortly afterwards, claiming that there was actually 1.44l in the car, stating that there had been fuel pump failure. The team handed the car over to the FIA, who impounded it.

The team then explained that the new evidence came from analysis of more than 100 channels of fuel system-related data, which concluded that Vettel's car had a fuel system failure during the race.

But in a hearing today in Paris, the FIA rejected Aston Martin’s right to review, stating that the new evidence provided to them by the team wasn’t relevant and therefore the right to review the penalty had been denied, although the team’s appeal against Vettel’s penalty is still ongoing at the time of writing.

“The Stewards do not accept Aston Martin’s reference to examples of decision making by the FIA where the approach has reflected compliance with the purpose, but not the wording of the Sporting and/or Technical Regulations,'' said an FIA statement on the matter.

“These are different cases where for instance car accident damage results in replacing parts or adding weight due to the loss of parts during the race. As long as such exemptions are not mentioned expressively in the written regulations, the Stewards have to follow the wording. “

“In the original decision, the Stewards only assumed the fact that there was not enough fuel in the tank. The question of what caused that situation was left out of consideration. Art. 6.6 in its entirety and Art. 6.6.2 of the F1 Technical Regulations unequivocally calls for a remaining amount of 1 litre and does not allow any exceptions under which circumstances or for what reasons it could be dispensed with.”

“Therefore, for the assessment of whether or not the 1-litre requirement was broken, it does not make a difference why there was less than 1 litre. There may be a couple of explanations why at the end of a race the remaining amount is insufficient.”

“In any case, it remains the sole responsibility of the Competitor to ensure that the car is in conformity with the regulations all times (Art. 3.2 FIA International Sporting Code) and it shall be no defence to claim that no performance advantage was obtained (Art 1.3.3 FIA International Sporting Code).”

“In order to be able to affirm a “relevant” fact, Aston Martin would have had to present facts that actually more than 1 litre of fuel was remaining. The explanation why this requirement could not be met is not relevant to the decision as to whether a breach of the regulations has occurred.” 

The result of today’s announcement means that the race result stays as it was when it was first amended, with Lewis Hamilton keeping his second-place finish as well as his eight-point lead in the drivers' championship ahead of Max Verstappen, whilst Carlos Sainz is confirmed in third place and secures his second podium of the season for Ferrari.