i feel correct decision i said at the time that if they are to give him any penalty. suspended race ban is ok. he did get a stop & go penalty. those are rare now. like brundle said on ssn. the fact he is on 9pts is ok & also this only come about because of Lewis's bad luck otherwise it wouldve been lewis 1st & vettel 5th. very few wouldve complained ----------------------------------------------------- now im always at work 1 - 10 on monday. so im never up to date with this type of news. but that does clear up why i saw Andrew benson on twitter earlier telling everyone to ignore fia document flying around the social media. as its fake & too early for the judgement
The penalty given was adequate. It was just Hamilton's bad luck that the loose head protection put him behind Vettel. There was no advantage or disadvantage to either driver from the contact, so no biggie. Lewis definitely backed off part way through the corner, having initially accelerated. He didn't brake, but he did back off a bit. It wasn't a brake test as such, more a back off test. Vettel was just caught out by running so close behind, as he needed to be to stand a chance at the restart of overtaking or defending his position. Let the buggers race for the rest of the season without further penalties.
I think the penalty was adequate had the only contact been the rear ending of Hamilton. It was the pulling alongside and deliberately turning in, out of petulance and anger, that should have been dealt with more harshly. That act should have been dealt with regardless of what he Appended to either driver in the rest of the race and regardless if championship standings.
it is very strange that so many people don't know the concept of "knowingly" or do not understand how it affects on the sentence. After all, this is what separates the offender from those who have stumbled. I am not for tougher penalties for Vettel but against the fact that Vettel will been justifying
I think there are two elements to this. Firstly, there is the act itself (bumping wheels) which was petulant and juvenile and deserved punishment. Secondly, there is the consequence of the act and as it was at very low speed there was none apart from Hammy getting a bit of shock (which I'm sure was the intention). He certainly wasn't trying to drive Lewis off the track or break his car. Had Vettel driven alongside as they braked in to the first corner after the long straight and side swiped Hamilton he would have, rightly, deserved to have to have the book thrown at him. In this situation the actually consequences for both drivers was nil and Vettel has been pulled up in front of the beak and warned about his behaviour. I doubt there will be a similar incident again in the near future. Job done - let's move on. Although... Should the FIA look at the restart procedure after a safety car period? If they could come up with a better system than the one where the lead car becomes the de-facto safety car and controls the pace of the race this would eliminate the problem of speeding up and slowing down with all the potential for cars rear ending each other. Here's a suggestion - the lights go out on the safety car and this immediately brings in a Virtual Safety Car situation where all the cars must travel at the same speed until they cross the start-finish line at which point they can then boot it. They could even make the cars all go round another lap under the VSC.
Really? You think a 10 second stop-and-go is appropriate for a minor contact during a race? If the only contact had been the rear ending, the stewards would have either ruled it a racing incident or at most award a 5 second time penalty. Trying to suggest that a 10 second stop-and-go would have been an appropriate penalty for just that shows a vast lack of perspective.
I think you have a point here. The leading drivers in safety car restarts have been pushing the boundary of the rules (in particular specifying that they should not go "unnecessarily slow") for years. Some reformulation (or enforcement) of the procedure seems in order. I like the idea of transitioning into a VSC situation. However, one potential issue is that (if I am not mistaken) the VSC is defined by maintaining a constant deltaT between the cars. Transitioning to a VSC would thus lead to drivers trying to minimize their deltaT during the actual safety car, leading to unsafe conditions. I don't think the FIA would want to turn tailgating into a sport. Alternatively, the rules could stipulate that the lead car should drive no slower than the safety car did on the previous lap. With modern GPS tracking this would be quite easy to enforce, and it would effectively stop the lead car from backing up the field to gain an advantage at the restart.
Hamilton was driving as slow as needed to don't catch up safety car when race will be restarted. And he was informed from engineer by team radio about this. But Vettel was driving so close to Hamilton that again not to fall under attack from behind. It was only his choice. The above chart clearly shows that Hamilton was not hard slowdowns. But Vettel acted erratically
And, by the way, only Hamilton was who on the radio saying that safety car is very slow and it would be better to use a VSC. And it was before Vettel's attack
OK. How about this. Safety car lights go out. Everyone hits speed lane pit limiter meaning then would all be same speed. Racing director does a 10 second count down before it turns green (they do this in Formula E before a VSC ends) Switching to a the VSC won't help the slowing down and starting. Drivers can go as slow as they want on a VSC.
No, no, no. Hamilton was driving as slow as was needed to build a large enough gap to the safety car, so he can accelerate to full speed before the race is restarted. That is, he is manipulating the speed of the field to create the optimal conditions for himself at the restart. Note that this is not specific to Hamilton. All driver's leading the field at a restart do this. (because it is the optimal strategy).
