F1 Talk: Why Vettel Deserved a Penalty

It was one of the most controversial decisions in Formula One for a very long time.

Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton were right on the limit, setting personal and race best sectors as they fought for the win in Montreal. Both deserve a huge amount of credit for giving us a fantastic battle and it was F1 at its best.

A 5-time world champion vs. a 4-time world champion, driving for two different teams – both wanting to win. For once, we had a situation where the racing and the battle at the front was full of intensity and the pressure was ramping up as they pushed harder and harder.

But, on lap 48, Vettel made an error. With Hamilton pressuring hard, Vettel lost the rear going into the turn 3/4 chicane. Vettel cut the chicane, going through the grass and re-joined the track just ahead of Hamilton. However, the stewards deemed that Vettel had:

“re-joined unsafely and forced another car (Hamilton) off the track”

Thus receiving a five-second time penalty. The decision from the stewards caused uproar and outrage around the F1 world with multiple current and ex-racing drivers against the decision. These include: Mario Andretti, Martin Brundle, Allan McNish, Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Jenson Button, Mark Webber, Lucas Di Grassi, Jason Plato and Nigel Mansell – to name just some.

How can that many drivers who have more experience than 99.9% of the universe in a racing car think that a penalty is wrong yet the stewards thought it was?

My initial thoughts was that a penalty for Vettel was a joke. A complete joke. Vettel could not have joined the track any safer.

He was on the grass, feathering the throttle and not in full control of his car. Had he floored the throttle, he would have spun, had he turned sharply, he would have spun. Even if he braked the German would immediately lock up and go in the same direction as he did and back towards the racing line.

But, like I said those were my initial thoughts. Now I think about it, he was in the wrong.

Vettel looked in his mirror and veered right, as shown by him straightening his steering wheel twice, to block Hamilton off. Others will say that he was not in control and was always going to go that way but his racing driver instincts kicked in and he did not want to lose his lead.

Even Hamilton said this: “As a driver, things go wrong you’re like ‘oh shoot’ and you try and squeeze so that you don’t lose a position”

To say Vettel could not have done anything else is wrong. Imagine if he made that mistake in practice or in Q1, he would not have touched the throttle or gone to the right towards the racing line. He would have stayed much more to the left and gone slower, but because it is a race he blocked Hamilton.

That is the problem and you can’t really argue with it by saying “that’s racing” because Hamilton and Vettel were extremely close to touching and had contact been made then surely most will say that Vettel deserves a penalty for causing a collision.

I know there wasn’t a collision in real life but they were dangerously close to colliding and Vettel coming back on the way he did caused Hamilton to back off and slow down or else he would have been in the wall.

It is the responsibility of the driver who is coming back onto the track to re-join safely.

Vettel himself on the team radio said:

“If I’d stayed on the inside, he would have overtaken me”

This is very telling as it suggests he could have stayed to the inside and had more control of the car than what many people think.

If you look at the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix and the opening lap, Romain Grosjean cut the very same chicane in his Lotus and re-joined in a much safer manner to Vettel. Now, no two incidents are exactly the same but because Grosjean was not fighting for the lead, he did not try to desperately keep track position so did not do what Vettel did.

My conclusion, Vettel deserves a penalty but not a 5-second time penalty.

In some motorsport series they have something called a ‘redress rule’ and why F1 and other series don’t have it, I really don’t know. It would have been perfect for this situation. The ‘redress rule’ means that the stewards can tell Car A to go behind Car B. In this case, the stewards should have told Vettel to let Hamilton by and then the battle can resume.

Should Vettel not comply, then penalise him by giving him a drive-through penalty.

In this way, we don’t completely lose the battle and Vettel can try and make his point on the track by overtaking Hamilton and the battle continues. Instead, what we got yesterday was a race that was killed by the stewards as Hamilton simply had to stay within five seconds of Vettel and had no need to risk an overtake.

A reprimand would have been a fair penalty too. In F1, if you get three reprimands within 12 months you get a 10-grid place drop for the next race so a reprimand would have been suitable.

Importantly, when making your opinion on this incident you have to ignore the entertainment value and look solely on the incident itself, and of course ignoring the drivers involved.

Ignore that a race battle is taken away from us, ignore that we might get a non-Mercedes win, ignore that it is for the lead and the win of the race. So many comments saying ‘the stewards are killing the sport’ is unfair. If this was for 15th place between Lance Stroll and Antonio Giovinazzi for example, you would not be saying any of this. You have to look at the incident itself and ignore that Mercedes are the ones to benefit even though they have won every race this season.

The main thing is the inconsistency from the stewards. That is what angers most fans. There must have been thousands of incidents in F1, millions in motorsport, that were 10 times worse than anything Vettel did on Sunday.

For example, in the very same race on Sunday – Daniel Ricciardo defended very aggressively on Valtteri Bottas with some very late defensive moves down the straight at over 180MPH. This was not even looked into. If Vettel gets a penalty for an unsafe re-join, why not Ricciardo for dangerous driving, it had parallels to what Max Verstappen did to Kimi Raikkonen down the Kemmel Straight at Spa in 2016.

This is the problem with the stewarding. It is a tough job and underestimated by most but the only consistency is the inconsistency and I don’t get why some things get penalised yet some don’t.

Like I said, solely looking at this incident, I would award a penalty to Vettel but only a reprimand or a redress, not a five second time penalty.

For more analysis on the rest of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, stay right here on Motorsport.radio.