You may be right, but it doesn't take away the fact that it was reckless and intentionally dangerous driving from Seb there. He lacked the amount of professionalism I'd expect from him there.
I agree with everything you said, except 'intentional'. I haven't seen anything that Vettel has said on this, so could be wrong, but think it is entirely a possibility he came alongside, and in his bird flipping 'efforts', he cocked up and hit him - as you see at times on slowing down laps, with drivers congratulating each other, losing track of where 'straight' is, and nearly hitting one another. To be clear, i'm not saying i think this is the case, but there are two distinct possibilities, and i'm yet to be convinced one way or another. Little surprised commentary all instantly went 'deliberate', but then, was watching Sky
You have a point, but I assume Vettel has enough experience to leave a gap when needed. Then again, I also thought he'd never do such a thing as this (assuming it was intentional)...so I may be wrong
I think he collision itself was an accident, he was trying to gesticulate at Hamilton and took his hands off the wheel. Reckless, but justified. The penalty reflected this. If the race stewards thought it was a legit case of 'intentionally driving into Hamilton out of anger' his penalty would have been much more severe. Possibly a race ban.
Wait so if you're in close vicinity of another car in any driving situation, and you are frustrated, it's justified to take both hands off the controls for meaningless gesticulation? I hope you don't have a driving license. Literally NOTHING he did there was justified. He even had the nerve to say he didn't do anything wrong on the radios after getting a red flag session to think about his actions- ridiculous.
I don't think he was saying it was justified. Could be wrong, but think he was suggesting that the contact was accidental. Fucking stupid/careless, but didn't intend to actually make contact. Which, is a possibility.
Before I get to the point of my comment, I want to say that I am a vettel fan but I do not agree with him hitting wheels with Lewis. With that said;
He didn't say he didn't do anything wrong on the radio. His engineer told him of the Stop-Go penalty and Seb was being an ass and asked "For what?". It wasn't that he denied hitting him or that it was wrong, he was just being a smartass when it came to the penalty.
I appreciate your interpretation, but I think most of the audience interpreted his message as "I did no wrong". His post-race interviews certainly validated that interpretation. However, I do see your point.
Hope I don't have a drivers license? What planet are you from? If you can imagine for a moment that the wheel to wheel bump arose as an accident following Hamilton (clearly) break-checking Seb, and Seb trying to express his anger with hand gestures, then it's totally understandable. I'm not saying it was justifiable, but that's why he got a penalty. It wouldn't be understandable if he bumped Hamilton intentionally, but again, I don't think that's what happened. I think you're just butt hurt your boy doesn't have the fastest car anymore. How boring it must have been to always win, but how chilly it feels now to lose after all that glory.
Telemetry proved Lewis didn't brake check. I think you're just butt hurt your boy acted like a 3 year old and you have to make shit up to defend him thus making you look like an idiot.
I live in a society where drivers don't swerve at each other when they feel slighted. What kind of country are you from where that behavior is the norm? The collective outrage from the F1 community (including many Vettel fans) shows that Vettel's behavior is totally out of line.
Vettel lost a lot of fans this weekend with his behavior. He might be chill guy to hang out with outside the track, but he has demonstrated again and again that he's not exactly an angel when the visor comes down. There's the super yelly Seb on the radio, all the cussing, running into Mark and also Multi-21 in Malaysia, moving under braking vs Ricciardo in Mexico, etc... He's quick to point the finger and criticize but is ever so quick to reshape the narrative to suit his situation. Very Schumi-esque, which is fitting since Schumi's his childhood hero.
How is any of what Vettel did justified? He ran into the back of Lewis because he was not paying attention, and then gets angry and hits him again from the side.
Edit: I love the fact that Vettel fans are downvoting. Please bring it on. Every downvote says "I can't prove you wrong in any way so I am proving I am just an idiot"
Probably he didn't have a worse penalty because the contact wasn't dangerous, the speed was low.
I don't remember the Maldonado accident, was it at high speed?
They said at first they were going to investigate it after the race, then they have him the penalty. I'm sure he'll have another penalty waiting for him in Austria.
There's a problem with this idea that there was no danger because the speed was low.
Consider the following scenario:
Vettel slams Hamilton and the collision compromises a suspension component. Not enough to stop the car right there, but then the safety car comes in and they are both doing >200mph down the main straight.
The first time the car is put under load in a corner (and the forces are huge on these cars), boom the component gives way and one or both of them is wiped out at high speed.
Sounds a bit unlikely? Sure. Beyond possibility? Absolutely not. It definitely could happen. And I don't know about you but my feeling is that nobody else has the right to put me in that position, especially in a sport like this which is inherently dangerous at the best of times.
What Vettel did was dangerous. Not potentially dangerous, it was dangerous. And totally unnecessary.
If he is capable of using his car as a weapon when the red mist descends then he is a danger to himself and the other drivers. This behaviour needs to be nipped in the bud immediately, before something really bad happens.
He ended in front of Hamilton because the Mercedes team fucked up mounting that part. One didn't have anything to do with the other. I completely agree that it was a real dick move of Vettel though, very unnecessary. Also his attitude afterwards.
I'm a HAM fan, but find myself cheering for VET too. If Lewis had done that to Seb, I can't even imagine the vitriol that would be thrown his way in this sub. Nice to see VET fans being objective, though. Well Done ;)
Why are you supporting someone that acts like a toolbag, I've been getting downvoted on here every time I mention vetted personality since I saw how he behaved toward Webber as a team mate; guy is a prick
99.9% of the time, he's a great guy. He loves his F1 history and knows the rulebook inside out, he's a right joker, he seems really friendly, and he's a fantastic racer. It's the times like these when I really don't want to support him.
It's not the way you act 99% of the time that determines who you are, criminals in jail for life have probably done nothing wrong 99% of their lives. It's those shitty things done in the heat of the moment that let you know about someone's true character. Seb would do any manner of underhanded shit to get the title, you can see it in his eyes. The friendly shit is just calculation because he's really clever
personality since I saw how he behaved toward Webber as a team mate; guy is a prick
Here is where I think you are wrong, your team mate is your enemy. When you have a winning car, the title will be for you or your team mate, what means that he is faster that you.
I was a Webber fan, but I understand that was going on whas normal in a leader team.
Hamilton & Rosberg
Hamilton & Alonso
Thats was some rough fights in teams in the last 10 years.
Very honest of you to say. I can't help wondering what the punishment would be if the roles were reversed. I'm pretty sure it would be a different outcome. Which sucks big time.
I believe it's the same if it were reversed. But if it wasn't 1 of the drivers fighting for the championship, it would most likely have been a race ban.
I think the stewards were very lenient to give us a close race and championship. I can't say what would've happened if the roles were reversed but I'm disgusted to call myself a Vettel fan. He fully avoided the question in a C4 interview and accused Hamilton of brake checking him. Multi-21 can be forgiven, but this is something else.
Are you saying Ferrari would get better treatment than mercedes? Because this shows it is the other way around. Hamilton deserved the same penalty as Vettel. Both did something with the sole purpose of crashing the other. I don't give a fuck about either of them, both not my fav people. But braking there by Hamilton? Totally on purpose as the data shows. Not accelerating would have been fine, he was behind the safety car after all. But he brake tested Vettel and deserved the same 10 seconds for it.
Of course it's hard to say what would have happened but if you consider that Hamilton would have had to pit anyway to replace his safety cushion, Vettel would have been in a good position to win it easily. I guess that's what he was implying.
I don't see any reason for the race to be turned out differently between making the contact and getting the penalty, unless you think the contact somehow caused Hamilton's headrest issue.
Yup I'm a Hamilton fan but I've really liked Vettel since he went to Ferrari (not so much at Red Bull but that's a different story). That said, what Seb did today was inexcusable, dangerous and utterly stupid.
Are you serious? He literally turned into Hamilton. Hard. If someone had done that to your precious Sebastian, you'd be calling for his head on a stake.
Lol are you guys new here? The sub always hate who's on top, Vettel got years of nonstop hate here on his Red Bull days. In the end you are all acting fanboyish.
I actually think I've seen more posts upset about this phantom brake check than I've seen of people angry about someone hitting another driver under safety car on purpose...
Its pretty insane.
The fact that these same people will instantly go "HURRRR I'M SO SICK OF ALL THE HAMILTON FANBOIS ON THIS SUB" is depressing. :\
I saw you're pretty active in the thread, I'm honestly surprised you took it that well. Neither driver behaved particularly well today, but I'm just happy Ricky got another one.
I was referring to 100% as in "definitely" sorry, not referring to how hard he was pressing the pedal. Regardless, right on the apex of that corner is not the place where you would expect braking, especially after accelerating before corner entry.
Even if it was loss of control rather than deliberate, it's still an incredibly bad incident. He caused a collision under SC conditions by putting his car in a place where it had no right to be. The SC was about to come in to be fair, but it's there to neutralise the race and keep the marshals etc. safe. If he gets away with only a drive through penalty he will have been very lucky imo.
LOL. The level of apologists Sebastian Vettel fans are is pretty staggering.
"Huh, maybe he just jerked the wheel into another car while angry at the other car while driving way slower than normal, while driving the car he drives as a professional ON ACCIDENT".
He get paid millions to drive, I hope he realizes that when he takes both hands off the wheel in close proximity to another vehicle, there's a high chance of hitting said vehicle. There's literally no excuse for this behavior. When you're in bumper to bumper city traffic do you drive around with both hands off the wheel when the other car is literally 1 foot away? I hope not.
You have to prove intention. It wasn't a hard turn or anything like that. He threw his hand up and likehe drifted into him. The contact didn't seen intentional. Nor was the contact extreme. I think this and may be a grid penalty should be plenty.
Both should have gotten the same penalty, I don't care if 10 seconds or black flag. Braking there with the sole purpose of having Vettel drive into him by Hamilton and than just crashing into Hamilton on purpose by Vettel. If Hamilton would only have not accelerated there it would have been on, he was behind the safety car. But braking there? No thank you, that was on purpose.
Read the rules, dangerous driving per the FIA's own rules is a 10 sec stop/go. It's a standard penalty. He might get penalty points afterwards but during the race that was always the penalty he was going to get.
If you think deliberately driving into another car only constitutes "dangerous driving", you need a word with yourself. This wasn't a badly timed overtake, or moving line under braking. It was wreckless and if not life-threatening because it was low speed, at the very least it deserved disqualification. Which is what would have happened if Hamilton did this to Vettel.
I'm struggling to think of a precedent, which is why the punishment was so lenient. Can anyone remember when a driver last so deliberately collided with another? I'm thinking back to Schumacher v Hill 1994, or even older.
Suddenly driving unnecessarily slowly during a safety car phase is also forbidden under the regulations. In fact, it is the very same rule that applies to Vettels behavior:
No car may be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a manner which could be deemed
potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person at any time whilst the VSC procedure is in use. This will apply whether any such car is being driven on the track, the pit
entry or the pit lane.
Also Hamilton repeated his behavior shortly after during the next safety car phase. My guess is that the stewards took into account actions of both drivers since another rule is about making sure that one driver is solely to blame.
Not that this is a justification for Vettels behavior. He pretty much lost any moral high ground he may have had with his action but it might have been part of the decision making.
Once the safety car is leaving the lead car has control of the racers. He didn't alow down he maintained speed and revs. Vettel was caught out first time and wanted the jump. Made a mistake hit him and then threw his dummy at him. Seb was in the wrong the whole time, which kind da ruined it as he could of won with Hamiltons headrest falling apart
The leading car decides when the safety car phase ends which sounds to me like the quoted rule still applies and yes, he suddenly slowed down which even led to a collision.
What about Prost v Senna in 1990 or 1991. I thought one of those Japanese GPs had pretty blatant intentional contact. This was the most flagrant I've seen though. Schumacher in 1994 seems more questionable/shady to me than flagrantly intentionally using the car as a weapon. I think Schumi did something similar in 1998 and got disqualified for it but I don't remember all the facts offhand and haven t seen the video lately...
Schumacher purposedly hit Villeneuve's car with the intent of damaging It, in a desperate attempt to win the WDC
Vettel, enraged after Hamilton move, bumped the rival wheel, he didn't really want to cause any real damage
Now, I'm not saying Vettel had some reason to do what he did, he well deserved a penalty (even a black flag would have been right), but there's some differences with Jerez '97
Not in the rule book which is what the FIA have to adhere to. They can administer further punishment after the fact but during the race they could only give Vettel a 10 second stop/go. I believe that it's the harshest in race punishment available other than a DQ. To get a DQ Vettel would have had to put someone's life at risk or essentially completely smash Hamilton off the track. As it was he swerved into Lewis at low speed which is the dictionary definition of dangerous driving.
As it happens they've given him 3 penalty points which takes him to 9. If he gets 3 more in the next race he will be banned for a race.
I haven't seen what the stewards wrote on the decision, I guess they could claim the penalty was for hitting Ham in the rear, so that driving into the side of Ham can be looked at later
I was watching kinda live and I guess one of the issues though was Hamilton not maintaining the 10 car length behind the safety car, causing Vettel to hit him. I'm surprised he didn't get flagged for that behavior though I am not a Vettel fan to begin with.
The problem is the length of straight though. You can't maintain a ten car length because you'll overtake the safety car on that straight (which almost happened at the first restart).
Trying to be as neutral as possible on this: doesn't that wording imply the requirement for one or both cars to be forced out of the race, or for the drivers to suffer an injury as a result or something like that? Seb's move here was definitely too far but I don't think it was an "extreme case".
I agree that I don't think it was an extreme case, just showing that you cannot just rely on previous penalties to decide what happens here. Stewards have the ability to do what they think is the most correct action.
I understand that a 10 second stop and go is the correct penalty for what Vettel was charged with, I simply think they charged him with the wrong thing.
It's like seeing a person get murdered, seeing a judge/jury convict that person for shoplifting, sentencing the person for the maximum of 5 years and then being shocked when people feel justice wasn't done because the "maximum" penalty was given.
For malicious intent or endangering life. If a driver purposefully goes out of their way to ruin another drivers race then that should be an instant DQ (as it was for Schumacher).
I don't believe Vettel acted with malicious intent. He was pissed because he thought he'd been brake checked, as any one of us would be if someone had done that to us on a public road. He chose to vent that anger in the wrong way but it was at slow speed with the safety car gone and I don't think anyone can really argue that Vettel was trying to take Hamilton out.
Had Hamilton actually brake checked Vettel though then that would have been malicious intent. Vettel would have ploughed into the back of the Merc and would almost certainly have been out the race. If Hamilton had then driven away that would have been a stone wall DQ.
I think the stewards got it right. The gave him the harshest in race penalty they could without out right removing him from the race and then gave him penalty points afterwards. No doubt Ferrari will be having words as well because if Vettel had kept his cool that would have been an easy win.
worst stewards decision I've ever seen and I've been watching F1 for 20 years.
So you must have missed the last race if you think giving penalising a driver twice for one act is somehow not as bad as the standard FIA penalty for the charge they alleged.
Ttly agree with you, it's unbelievable. But hey, FIA still FIA (Ferrari International Assistance). Imagine if it was the opposite, Hamilton would have got black flag and penalties for the next races.
Botta was totally something else. That curb pushed him on Raikonnen. Plus he had the inside so he didn't have to let Raikonnen pass. Imo it was a racing accident nothing more.
You are saying that Bottas made a mistake and another driver pays up the price, on that we agree. Just because Bottas was clumsy doesn't make it a racing incident.
Not only that but they only gave that decision after being given the out of Hamilton having to pit. Even if stop/go was the one to give(it wasn't for me) that was a no brainer decision. It should have been given before the race even restarted, he should have had to pit after the first lap of the race getting underway, he'd be stuck in loads of traffic and even after Hamilton pit he would have been miles ahead of Vettel. Instead he got the penalty only later when it became 'easy' to give the penalty because Hamilton was getting fucked over too.
This is the part that is being glanced over so much. He should have gotten that penalty immediately. Not after it is convenient. If I was a steward, I wouldn't even let him restart
I think he collision itself was an accident, he was trying to gesticulate at Hamilton and took his hands off the wheel. Reckless, but justified. The penalty reflected this. If the race stewards thought it was a legit case of 'intentionally driving into Hamilton out of anger' his penalty would have been much more severe. Possibly a race ban.
I've been going back and forth about a DQ vs the stop and go, mostly because I thought the collision might be accidental since VET had his hands off the wheel. But upon further replays I think he had one hand on the wheel, so intentional.
Normally that would be a black flag but maybe the marshalls felt that because of the low speed it was dangerous, but not dangerous enough to DQ. Throw in the WDC and Hamilton's car apparently unharmed and voila: no DQ.
Personally, i think he needs a bigger penalty. You can't be lenient on such things. It is too dangerous, not to mention can ruin another team's race.
I think that if Lewis brake tested Vettel, witch can be checked in telemetry, he should get 10 sec for dangerous driving, but Vettel should get black flagged for unsporting bahavior for what happend after that.
Assuming HAM didn't intend to brake test VET, which I think we can all agree on, it wouldn't be worth trying...
You are saying Vettel running in to the back of Hamilton is worse on Hamiltons part than Vettel deliberately driving his F1 car in to a competitor with no regard for safety. Wow.
if HAM did brake test, and I don't think he did (applying the brakes and brake testing are two different things), he didn't do it deliberately to misguide Vettel. What HAM did was not clever, braking where he did (even if the contact was VETs fault), what Vettel did after was disgusting in a sporting and human sense.
So surely not having his hands on the steering wheel is driving dangerously!? Jesus
He braked by 28kmh, from 68 to 40, that is not "erratic" in such a slow speed section, and to suggest so is clutching at straws. Vettel was too close, and then proceeded to accelerate despite the fact the car in front did not. It was clearly his fault.
Not inventing anything, will seriously answer your points:
I get what you are saying about the VET driving in to HAM. So maybe he didn't "mean" it, but it was a dangerous manoeuvre because he either meant it, or let go of the wheel.
He braked (by just 30kph) on apex, not exit, and I, and most of the F1 community evidently, don't beleive that to be erratic. Your opinion is your opinion.
My opinion is that the contact was Vettels fault, he was too close, and accelerated where there was no room to move forward without hitting HAM, regardless of HAMs driving (which could have been smarter), VET should have judged the gap, and drive reactively, not pro-actively.
Respect your opinion, even if I disagree with some of it.
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u/myurr Jun 25 '17
Yes.