cyclelife
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His mistake stopped Lewis from overtaking, no way should he of kept his place. For fairness though, he should of been told by the stewards to let Lewis through and raced on from there.

Somebody needs to research the difference between ‘of’ and ‘have’ methinks…

(Rhetorical) Question: is pressurising a driver and forcing them to make a mistake a valid racing tactic?

I didn’t watch the race or the incident on the interweb as I’ve just got back from a weekend rave 😎 … weather was dry and sunny and the choons were **** awesome, thanks for asking 😉 . However, emotional reactions such as denial, anger and sulking are all borne from guilt and shame.

I would proffer that SV needs help to start dealing with his personal baggage and issues, otherwise he may never grow up.

(Rhetorical) Question: is pressurising a driver and forcing them to make a mistake a valid racing tactic?

Yes, definitely.

IMO, it’s the inflexibility that is the problem, not the penalty itself.

Verstappen did the same thing in Japan and that set something of a precedent, so Vettel got the same penalty. In fact it could be argued that he got off lightly as there was potential for LH to be pushed into the wall, while Verstappen was ‘just’ pushing someone off the track into an open area.
The ‘where else could I go?’ thing just doesn’t really cut it as , if it had been a practice, he would have lifted off and made a better return to the track. He chose not to lift and paid the price.

A piece from Palmer that puts my view across far better than I could:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/48583803

as his defence said, his natural momentum took him across the full width of the circuit. But in that case he is guilty of rejoining the circuit in an unsafe manner, as he was not in full control of his car, to the extent that he ran Hamilton off the road in an unsafe manner.

But this is the very description of a “racing incident”. No way could he brake on the grass, and his momentum took him back onto the track and impeded Hamilton’s ill judged attempt to overtake on the outside where it was obvious Vettel would end up. This is my opinion obviously and it doesn’t count for squat, same as anyone’s apart from the race stewards on the day.

Shame we don’t get the telemetry, I’d like to know if he braked/steered out of the way of the racing line at all.

Taxi – there’s a queue of former high end race drivers agreeing with you.

Motor racing community react to controversial Vettel/Hamilton penalty

Me? Dunno. Never been that class of race driver (or any class) or an F1 steward.

I wonder what the penalty would have been if he’d slammed on the anchors to n the grass and slid across into car 44 (which wouldn’t have been able to avoid him)?

My best educated guess is that at the level of skill and experience these two top drivers possess, they both probably knew what they were doing. Brinkmanship, sportsmanship… both the same in the heat of competition.

Rosberg’s take on it

His mistake stopped Lewis from overtaking

That makes zero sense. Had he not made the mistake, he’d still have been in front. It was his return to the racing line that stopped Lewis overtaking and which resulted in the stewards’ decision.

Vettel kept his foot in across the grass knowing full well what he was doing. The clever choice after the incident would be to let Lewis through but they didn’t.

What irks me more is the fact ferrari didn’t tell Leclerc that Seb had a five second penalty. He was going much faster at this stage and i’m sure would have got under the 5 seconds on the last lap. He stopped pushing so much as he thought the race was done. Once again Ferrari stitched him up like a kipper.

I hope Sebs ridiculous behaviour after the race earns him a massive fine or something. Pathetic and childish.

Tricky one. Not really a vettel fan and his extended strop was most amusing. Lewis can be trying too, but ultimately an exciting driver that takes risks.

We are forgetting though, that Hamilton probably knew exactly what would happen and shoved his car as close to the Ferrari as he could to provoke a steward’s reaction. If he had backed off, Bottas-style, it may have come to nothing. These guys know what they are doing and play the media like they are innocent. Vettel made a mistake, his instinct caused him to defend, Lewis made a meal of it and got the result. It’s a bit like going down easily in the penalty area after a nudge. If you stay upright nothing will get given, if you crumple in a heap, who knows, maybe a penalty. Don’t blame the players, blame the rules.

These are ‘sportspeople’ at the top of their game and they will not give an inch. Do I like it? Not always, no, and if I was in their position I would be the gentleman, but obviously finish last. But when these things happen it really does bring out the ‘real’ competitors and it becomes compulsive viewing.

Vettel kept his foot in across the grass knowing full well what he was doing. The clever choice after the incident would be to let Lewis through but they didn’t.

I think you may be somewhat overestimating the ease with which an F1 car can be controlled on grass when it’s just lost traction under braking and is slewing sideways.

We are forgetting though, that Hamilton probably knew exactly what would happen and shoved his car as close to the Ferrari as he could to provoke a steward’s reaction.

Plausible, but a whole lot less plausible than Lewis going for the gap that opened up, backing out at the last possible moment when it became clear that the gap was about to fall apart, and then making the inevitable radio call that’s part and parcel of seeing if the regulations will give the result when the rapidly-vanishing gap doesn’t.

I don’t doubt he would have gone for the gap but was there a gap? I think he knows vettel too well.

The clever choice after the incident would be to let Lewis through but they didn’t.

Because they are not permitted to do that. Having found that an offence had been committed, they were required to impose a penalty. The most lenient penalty available was to add 5 seconds to the race time.

I think you may be somewhat overestimating the ease with which an F1 car can be controlled on grass when it’s just lost traction under braking and is slewing sideways.

I’m sure burying your foot on the gas is going to help you control it on the grass…

Because they are not permitted to do that. Having found that an offence had been committed, they were required to impose a penalty.

I mean Ferrari not the stewards. If they had done so i’m sure the stewards would have let it ride.

Ricciardo weighs in…

https://www.planetf1.com/news/ricciardo-vettel-block-like-hamiltons-in-monaco/

I’m sure burying your foot on the gas is going to help you control it on the grass…

Did he bury it?

And autosport have more insight on the stewards. They see more than us including the second steering input and the mirror check. The drivers know how to play the game.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/143996/vettel-steering-inputs-key-to-fia-penalty-decision

I’m sure burying your foot on the gas is going to help you control it on the grass…

Have you seen some telemetry, then? Because it doesn’t look like he buried his foot. Do that on grass and you lose the back end.

I’ve said it before… but you are all missing the opportunity here.

Instead of a dead-duck 5-second penalty that effectively neutralises the race, confuses the fans, leaves everyone unsatisfied and drives all this staffroom chatter and gossip afterwards, just give Vettel a ‘long-lap’ penalty, like in motoGP.

Then what happens?

1. This puts Vettel behind Hammy on track.
2. He is annoyed, obviously, but charges back up to Hammy, red mist coming down
3. In a Ferrari that is fast on the straight, he takes it to Hammy and has a go for the win.
4. The fans love it.

So we can either have a load of gossiping or a decent race on track. Take yer pick.

That Autosport article gives the detail I’d expected to see. Watching the clip last night of the F1 website, you can slow it to 50% speed, which gives a clearer view of the steering input and Vettel’s head.

To me it looked like it was the fact that he rejoined over the kerb, rather than going left of it and rejoining at a shallower angle and on a flat transition, that necessitated the counter steering, but it was hard to see the subtleties which will be evident from telemetry. The stewards know their onions and they were unanimous.

Don’t get me wrong, though, I think it sucks, but it’s a question of how you fix the rules or the punishment, not the stewards.

just give Vettel a ‘long-lap’ penalty, like in motoGP.

Which is not an option under the current rules. The stewards had two options: ignore the incident or give a 5 second penalty.

To be fair they also had a 10 second penalty and a stop-and-go to play with, but those options would have raised everyone’s eyebrows 🙂

Ferrari could release their telemetry data for the incident, in order to clear their diver (at least in the court of public opinion), unless of course it doesn’t actually support their histrionics at the decision.

Thing with incidents like this is that appealing the decision is just a formality. I suspect that Ferrari accept that it was a reasonable decision, but they have to make a public show of supporting their driver and there’s a remote chance that the appeal will succeed, plus no downside if it fails. It’s not just Ferrari, teams always appeal decisions as a routine thing unless there’s the possibility of being penalized further.

To return to the “long lap” idea: it’s a nice thought, but it’s convenient that Montréal happens to have a hairpin with a load of empty space to the outside. We’re talking about cars, not bikes, so you need a lot more width to play with and there aren’t many circuits at which you could incorporate a long lap option without modification to the track. Good luck making a long lap at Monaco 🙂 So, for better or for worse, time penalties is what we’re stuck with for now.

You could dismantle the relevant regulations entirely, removing the difficult line between “hard racing” and illegal behaviour, but those regulations came about by the drivers asking for them so they had clarity. Take them away and you’re back to seasons like 1990 and 1994 where the drivers’ championships were decided by way of deliberate collisions. Both the drivers who caused those collisions are among the most iconic hard-fighters of F1 history, but it’s easy to forget that at the time both incidents were ugly at best and were almost universally condemned.

Clearly Vettel wasn’t trying to take Hamilton out—merely to block the pass at most, as any competitive driver would have done—but there’s a whole baby/bathwater consideration here: no-one wants to see races or championships decided by stewards’ penalties, but nor does anyone want to see them decided by deliberate collisions. There may be better ways of wording the regulations, but if there was a perfect solution it probably would have presented itself by now.

Can we add Ferrari International Assistance to the banned phrases list now?

I seems to remember Vettel getting away with a nasty, double move block on Hamilton at the russian GP last year. Ham got past in the end, using rage as an elbow, but that was typical Vettel, so was Sunday – he doesn’t change. Sometimes he gets away with it, sometimes he doesn’t.

To return to the “long lap” idea: it’s a nice thought, but it’s convenient that Montréal happens to have a hairpin with a load of empty space to the outside. We’re talking about cars, not bikes, so you need a lot more width to play with and there aren’t many circuits at which you could incorporate a long lap option without modification to the track.

How much time does a ‘long lap’ add over a normal lap?

Entirely unsurprisingly, Alex Wurz is absolutely spot on:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/48593772

Sometimes he gets away with it, sometimes he doesn’t.

I took this as the gist of Hamilton’s view of it when he said that he’d have done the same. As track position is king you keep it at all costs, then work it out from there.

I like the idea of a penalty lap/infringement lane though, about the only circuit you couldn’t add one to is monaco (or maybe baku) the res all have multiple layouts anyways.

At Monaco you could send them the other way around the casino roundabout and add a little chicane in it. Plenty of room.

I don’t think Vettel was trying to put Hamilton into the wall, he was trying to make sure that Lewis couldn’t get his front wheel into the gap and Hamilton was the reverse, as they both know that once Lewis’ wheel is alongside it’s his space.

Reading back over the past couple of pages, I really don’t understand the vitriol directed at Vettel. He comes across pretty well, he definitely has a sense of humour and is pretty quick.

As for the penalty, I cannot see how Vettel could’ve avoided the situation. It’s not as though he did an Adelaide ’94 on Hamilton, he was already committed to correcting a slide when Hamilton attempted to pass.

No vitriol here. Hamilton would have done the same, as would the rest of them, apart from maybe Bottas. Rosberg would have slammed Hamilton into the barrier, punched him, stamped on his head then say it wasn’t his fault. Like I said, they don’t give an inch.

Here’s an idea, get rid of the grass and put gravel traps back. That’ll slow the nuggets down. And, as the argument goes, they’ll have to be more careful about losing it on a corner and drive properly, damn it.

One alternative to these rules is Schumacheresqe weaving and bullying drivers into the wall, just like the good old days. They’ll soon be whinging about that.

I really don’t understand the vitriol directed at Vettel. He comes across pretty well, he definitely has a sense of humour and is pretty quick.

Erm…

At Monaco you could send them the other way around the casino roundabout and add a little chicane in it. Plenty of room.

Hmm. The occasional car slowing unexpectedly online on the way into the Square? Not sure that’d pass the risk assessment.

As for the penalty, I cannot see how Vettel could’ve avoided the situation. It’s not as though he did an Adelaide ’94 on Hamilton, he was already committed to correcting a slide when Hamilton attempted to pass.

He could’ve, but he would have had to work at it, and he would have lost the spot – definitely opened the wheel to block LH once back on track. Wurz’s observation in Bez’s post above is spot on.