Lauda: "Penalt for Vettel was too lenient"
- Published on 25 Jun 2018 10:49
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- By: Danny Sosef
Niki Lauda thinks the FIA let Sebastian Vettel escape with a lenient penalty after a first lap crash at Paul Ricard. Vettel and Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas collided at the start of Sunday's French grand prix, and the Ferrari driver was given a 5 second penalty.
"Why did Vettel only get five seconds for a huge mistake?" F1 legend and Mercedes team chairman Lauda said. "Five seconds is nothing. It destroyed Valtteri's race. We could have had first and second places," he added.
However, FIA race director Charlie Whiting defended the penalty. "The stewards had four options," he revealed. "A 5 second penalty, a 10 second penalty, a drive through and a stop and go. 5 seconds seems logical given other incidents of this kind in the past. If you take into consideration the consequences of the incident, you could argue that it should have been different, but that's not what the stewards did," added Whiting.
Vettel finished the race fifth, with Finn Bottas in seventh. Lewis Hamilton therefore re-took the lead in the world championship, and now leads Vettel by 14 points.
Hamilton said: "I think the five second penalty is like a slap on the wrist when you destroy the race of another guy. If he ends up finishing in front of that guy, you have to ask whether the penalty was enough," he added.
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Replies (14)
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Posts: 162
And of course Bottas didn't cut across Vet did he!
Patentprutser
Posts: 388
Bottas did nothing wrong. Vettel misjudged and ran into him. I think penalty was okay. Bottas’ damage was unforseen, that’s racing
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
No, Bottas left plenty of room. The only reason this happened was Sebastian's sloppy lock up.
Also yes, the penalty was a joke, I don't think the stewards were biased. It was just a poor choice. If they had at least forced (as they did in the past) the penalty to be served within a certain number of laps. But instead, allowing for the team to plan around it, wait for a potential safety car, take advantage of the superior pace to negate the effect of the penalty... It ended up not being a penalty at all. It was the same as if he had been involved in a mere race incident. I suspect that the treatment would have been quite different if it had been Verstappen or Grosjean.
F1_IS_Dead
Posts: 123
Bottas did what he always does. As I already wrote, his job is to let Vettel pass and to block Verstappen. He did exactly what was expected. He even admitted, that he left room for Vettel which actually was very funny. But Vettel being Vettel lost his head once again. Poor guy was looking at Max in the mirror.
F1_IS_Dead
Posts: 123
BTW, the penalty was a joke. But what was even funnier was this driver of the day BS. They rigged the voting to make Seb happy.
If Maldonado sees this, he probably makes a comeback.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
It was an okay race, but something was missing yet again. And are STR cursed? How many times have they been involved in early race incidents by now?
I dont know. I almost thought it would be deemed as a racing incident, so in that sense I feel it was a reasonable penalty. The thing that did ruin Bottas' race was that poor pitstop, and while that was affected by the floor damage thats not really Vettel's fault.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
Come on @Calle, Bottas race wasn't ruined by Vettel? The pit stop lost him maybe 5s. He did a whole lap with a puncture losing not only time but dowmforce from the damaged floor. He also didn't have the benefit of Ferrari's B and C teams letting him through like they did with Vettel.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
It was worsened, but ruined it was not. What ruined it was the broken floor and the poor stop. That stop was worth more than just 5 seconds, looking at where he was before the stop and where he was after the stop. As for letting past... It could be team orders but I dont think it was. At least it wasnt as blatantly obvious as it was in Monaco.
f1ski
Posts: 726
SuchBS. Vettel could be seen braking way before bottas and Hamilton. Loses downforce and can't turn in as fast as Bottas who clearly didn't leave room there was not enough room for two after bottas came across. Same as he did to Grosjean. That was a racing incident. I fully expect to see BOP as in lemans in F 1 soon the FIA is a joke. Lets let the cars run all out all through the race.
Freguz
Posts: 160
I think the penalty was spot on.
But what about all the stripes everywhere, hypnotising the viewers, looks awful.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Yeah it isnt pretty. Grass would've been better in that sense, but grass sand and gravel is also less healthy for the cars. But then again they coulda just had plain tarmac instead.
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
I think the penalty was fair, all things considered. I hate the 5 second penalty when a driver takes another driver out, while being able to continue in the same spot himself.
Here Vettel had to pit, and dropped to the back of the field, so he suffered enough as far as I'm concerned.
f1ski
Posts: 726
Its racing!!! Everyone near the limit at the start they are side by side. During the race how many times did we see cars lose the front end as they were being passed just before the corner. Why don't we just have the drivers race in simulators and when they crash they can just soldier on. Racing does stand a chance in the PC world.
RacetoWin
Posts: 95
It's obvious merc had a plan, they boxed in vettle and gave him no choice, if he slowed he would get hit, he only had one side to use as a braking reference, he had to stay at the left edge of the track as his was forced to until he had to brake and I believe it was a merc plan to trip up vettle using bottas as the pawn as it would maximize points for Hamilton.
It was a cruel way to screw up a race that had enough elements to be a classic.
I was happy the race proved martin brundel wrong as the chicane he complained about had lots of passing and the Paul ricard circuit proved to be a good f1 track, the circuit has elements like Montreal but without the concrete barriers that cause havoc.
It's too bad both Ocon and Gasly were taken out in the first lap, the young sauber driver is proving to be a talented wheelman. Soon f1 will be all that we have been waiting for.