How do you know that was their reason?

Having looked at it several time, my best guess is that Vettel mistook a tiny move left from Button (at the end of the curve just as they enter the braking zone) as an attempt to retake the racing line. In the split second after realising this wasn't the case he got a bit flummoxed that resulted in him braking at a less than ideal angle and losing it.

I still feel that Vettel's mistake was no more or less worthy of a penalty than Barrichello's, even though I was gutted for Jenson.

The difference is Barrichello didnt take another car out of the race. Amazingly Alonso's car was ok.

Show me the rule that supports your opinion.

The quote from Vettel does not say anything about Jenson braking early or not, it does not contain any information of that. And there was drops of rain falling, that is clearly visible from the car cam, so the track was damp. If it was damp enough to make a difference I can not say, and probably not Vettel either. In fact, Vettels statement does not rhyme at all with the footage because when he was on the outside of Jenson, he had already lost control of the car. But either way it was a racing incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp8tTb-_Y-E

... yes he will bounce back ..... into someone else that is!

It looks like Vettel suffered huge aero problem; wake of Button's car or even weak point o Newey design...? Horner could be covering Newey's short coming, instead of Vettels.

Don't F1 car behave skidding and spinning when it looses its rear wing?

I agree, I'm usually first to say Vettel can't overtake but theres something not right there how the car veered out of control.

That is extremely far fetched. It skids like that when you brake hard and turn at the same time since a racing car has a brake bias that is completely different from any car you have ever driven.

Jenson has not been very lucky at Spa though, finished only three races 2000-2010

REF other thread.

It is related to Webber Kova incident.

Surprising that we have no seen it, till today.

It started at the front wing. No one can steer a car that changes the level of down force that much in split second. We see only the front wing, but the air lows over the entire car. The effects should be tremendous, like one side having 1000kg more donw force while a split seconds later the balance flips.

Result? I can only think of FIA must take immediate action.

Yes.

Watch onboard. Right "feint" is car already oversteering. Left jink is countersteer and the resulting overcorrection into button. That would explain the right "feint." He had already lost the car.

Not pointing to you directly, but many posters here would do well to sit behind the wheel sometime.

I thought the feint was a real attempt to take the inside. Then Button covered and he tried on the left too quickly and lost the rear.

Agreed. I am a little fed up with criticism of professional driving techniques that are gleaned from hours of rfactor playing rather than driving a real automobile.

title of this thread should be changed again from "unfair penalties against vettel" to "penalties against vettel"

I havent seen anything unfair.

And I dont believe this will change the drivers thoughts on overtaking meaning less of it - at least no one in the top lot, except vettel, who actually needs to rethink how he goes about it anyway.

I dont want to see crazy OT moves that take guys out in the first part of the race. Watch lower classes if thats what u want.

Penalty was justified. He made a stupid rooky mistake and took Jenson out of the race, and may well have ended Jenson's WDC challenge for this year.

But of course we should allow him to behave like that right.... 'unfair penalties'?? stupid thread more like.

Altho the penalty looked justified and seems to match most people's sense of justice, it wasnt really consistent with what the stewards have been doing up until this season.

There was no deliberate driving into and in my view there was also no unnecessary risk taking (the spot being the overtaking spot - Jenson also knew that). That Vettel lost control is another matter.

I have no problems with Stewards starting precedents but it will be interesting if they dont hand out penalties for such contacts later on in the year /

On the other hand - if this precedent is upheld then it will simply discourage overtaking

I assumed that the difference was that about 75% of the field cocked up the bus stop on the lap that Rubens did because of the surprising track conditions. So Rubens' mistake was more understandable than Vettel's.

I wonder if we could start an unfair penalty against xxxx thread so to cover all races.

- this race vettel seems to be the bad guy
- hungary it was michael schumacher
- ferrari was the boogieman at hockenheim

Who next? Officer Bar Brady? The 1991 Denver Broncos?

Sure but this, historically, and as the rules are written is not what the stewards consider.

Raikkonnen was not penalised for rear-ending Sutil and Monaco 2008, for example.

I realise that stewards decisions on these things are not easy and I have little/no sympathy for Vettel but I do think the penalty was harsh because it is not consistent with the vast majority of previous rulings.

Vettel has had too many of these. He had the first one at Fuji against Webber. He admitted back then that he was watching the wrong way while racing a formula One car.

Red Bull think that Vettel is the next Schumacher, but IMHO he is far from it. Honestly it will be VERY hard to find a replacement, I even donno if it is necessary to find one. So it was a penalty based on Vettel's life time achievements.

Out of curiosity, since this thread pictures Vettel as a guy who is crashing into people right and left, can we make a list of all his offenses? Then maybe compare it to other drivers. I think it might be a situation here where we weigh in the importance of his crashes (podium deciding) more than the actual count, but I might be mistaken.

Much as I would like to give Seb the benefit of the doubt, I think if you analyse incidents other drivers have had, you will find fewer where the incident seemed as silly and avoidable as what Vettel's been doing. He started 09 with a stupid mistake in Melbourne, costing him (and RBR) vaulable points. He hasn't seemed to have improved since.

I am still curious. Is he crashing people more often or just in a more silly manner? How much is that incident behind the SC still affecting how people judge his modern performance?

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/overtaking/

HAHAHA

That is brilliant!

Excellent!

Another brilliant piece of objective journalism (after Ferrari team orders "high morals" outrage) from J. Saward. "A member of the McLaren team, who had best remain nameless, has sent me a" barrel of laughs. How about nameless Red Bull team member sending video to instruct Hamilton (or Button, see China) how to keep the car on the track.

That's pretty sad dude.

Don't think there has been any unfair penalties so far for Vettel. 10 pages? Wow.

Stewards seem to be better this year under Todt's reign with the guest stewards. It's not perfect but it never will be. It's better then Max's reign so far.

The ones they get wrong it's usually cause of a glitch in the stupid rulebook. The stewards just enforce the rulebook. Fix the rulebook.

ATTENTION!

SENSE OF HUMOUR FAILURE!

CLEAR THE AREA IMMEDIATELY!

.................................................................

I'd say the last line of Joe's blog was aimed fair and square at the likes of you.

Classic example of damning with faint praise..

It´s brilliant. Wonder if the FIA would accept such moves or hand out penalties for it....

Classic,

On a seperate note, why is this thread still going?

I think it will be kept going until Monza, when it will be replaced by a similar thread. Unless Sebastian finally wins again...

No penalties. Webber did it on Kova i Valencia and there was no penalty. But it is obviously part of RBR strategy. Newey has to work a bit more on the flex to make the lift a bit more predictable. Predictable and graceful.

This begs a question then, whether a driver should be penalised every time they loose control over their car? All these drivers do operate in a risky zone under variable conditions which aren't always under their control. Do we really want them to slow down? If Seb hitted a road-bump and lost control, he calls that a mistake, but in reality he should get benefit of doubt, not a penalty. Button braked earlier then ususal Horner said, which induced additional variable into sequence of events which were already underway. Anyway, I do not want to re-start whole doscussion, and if Sebastian can live with it, so can I, but was there really need for his penalty?

The key point here is he put a title challenger out of the race. imo it is fair to penalise when that happens. Yes Vettel didnt do it on purpose but still I think Vettel would agree himself the penalty was fair.

I have said previously that I thought the penalty was harsh precisely because in most similar incidents in the past, there has been no penalty.

My post was in response to your assertion that Button was just as much to "blame" for the incident.

He probably was given a penalty because all the gesturing he did at the pitlane when he got the drive through at Hungary. We have already learned that if a driver doesn't show agreement with a penalty, Charlie Whiting doesn't forget

Maybe badly worded on my part, but that's not what I meant to convey. I was actually thinking about another three cases in which Vettel got penalised, whilst the other party got out of it smelling like a rose bush.

From the beginning of the season McLaren lead PR campaign against RB. Off the top of my head:
- Dennis and his claim that Red Bull designed fuel tank not big enough - incredibly insulting
- Hamilton announcing Webber's retirement (may have been Hamilton's clumsiness)
- ride hight adjustment cheating accusation
- Whitmarsh and his cuddling comments after Turkey
- on one hand saying that is too early to support only one driver on the other pointing out Webber as the only competitor (Whitmarsh)
and generally stirring sh..t whenever it was possible. That's OK, they are competitors, it's not classy but probably works on some level.
Harmless joke or not sending youtube videos to journalists mocking Vettel is very much part of it. Should supposedly impartial journalist be involved in this? Don't know how it's called in England - bias, lack of objectivity, taking sides, hypocrisy?
I agree with J. Saward though - Ferrari/Alonso bit from him after Hockenheim, I mentioned, was also a joke. Biased, hypocritical and surprise, surprise directed at another McLaren/Hamilton/Button competitor. But a joke nevertheless.






-

Three? Which are those?

It's quite funny that you should be getting so upset about a joke video, maybe you miseed the RB bulletins that mocked most up and down the paddock. As to the other stuff, I've heard just as many accusations coming from RB\Horner. It happens all the time in F1 and is not confined to just one or two teams.

Dennis opined that Vettel ran too rich a fuel mixture in the early part of the race in Bahrain and that it was running too lean later on that caused his retirement. This opinion appears to have been correct.

Even if your premise that McLaren and its lackeys are somehow 'out to get' Red Bull is correct, so what? Red Bull have done far more themselves this year to sully their image than any rival team could.