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FIA agrees to review Perez's Canadian Grand Prix penalty

Force India has been successful in convincing the FIA to review its decision to punish Sergio Perez for causing a last lap crash with Felipe Massa at the Canadian Grand Prix

Perez was handed a five-place grid penalty after being blamed for moving over on Massa as they battled for positions under braking for the first corner at Montreal.

But Force India argued last week that the race stewards should look again at the crash and consider Perez's own testimony on what happened.

The Mexican had been unable to speak to the stewards in Canada because he was in hospital at the time having precautionary checks.

The FIA met with Force India representatives on Friday morning in Austria to decide whether or not Perez's version of events could be considered as new evidence to justify a new hearing.

Following that meeting, it was agreed that there were indeed enough grounds to look once again at what happened.

An FIA statement said: "The team submitted that it was unaware when summonsed to the original hearing that its driver was po tentially to be charged with causing a collision and that because it had been unable to communicate with the driver after the collision, as the driver was in hospital, they attended the original hearing without input from the driver as to the cause of the incident.

"Further the team submitted that it had now had the opportunity to speak with the driver on the circumstances leading to the incident under review and had been able to consider the relevant telemetry.

"The team requested that these new elements, namely the verbal testimony of its driver and the relevant telemetry be considered, and that the Decision in Document 44 be reviewed.

"We note for the record that these are exceptional circumstances, namely where the driver was taken to hospital and unable to communicate with his team or attend the hearing, and this determination is not to be considered a precedent."

Force India and Williams representatives have duly been summoned to meet with the FIA stewards at 4pm on Friday to review the accident.

Speaking before the FIA decided to open the investigation again, Massa said that his opinion that Perez was entirely to blame had not changed.

"I will not change my opinion," he said. "The rules are the rules, and they come from the FIA. If you know the history, it is always young drivers - especially him - causing these accidents."

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