Vettel vs Bottas - Was a Five Second Penatly Deserved?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Sebastian Vettel incurred the wrath of the stewards at Paul Ricard today, but do you think the German driver got off lightly with his five second penalty?

Accidents happen when the field is close together on the opening lap of a motor race, and with such high stakes in play heading into Formula One's very first triple header starting this weekend, the pressure was high on Vettel and Ferrari to close the gap to Mercedes in France, so much so that Vettel found himself making contact with Bottas and causing considerable damage to the Ferrari front wing...

With both Bottas and Vettel considerably delayed, the race event stewards saw fit to award Vettel a five second penalty for his part in the fracas.. but do you think the penalty was deserved, more of a racing incident, or harsh considering the circumstances?

Vote in our poll and leave a comment below!

 

[Raikku]

It always seem that judges never have balls enough to punish bigger names properly. If someone like Stroll, Gross etc do that, penalties will be on totally different level.

 

[Patrick van der Meulen]

Well, when looking at Bottas his actions in the past taking multiple cars out in the first corner without being penalized... This was not that different. Just a judgement mistake of Vettel. Racing incident imho.

And yes, I dislike the lack of consistency of the stewards. But tonight I watched a part of Indycars at Road America. What a joy to see them race and not being investigated and/or penalized for every fart like in F1. So it is possible...

/edit: to be clear I’m not a fan of how Ferrari seems to be the favorite child of FIA. And yes I found his action just . But he’s only human and makes judgement mistakes. This is racing after all. Not grandma’s knitting club.

 

[samcar304]

Similar to what Bottas done last year in Spain and Baku. Made a mistake paid the price.

 

[formidable]

The worst punishment will be to lose the championship, if you make these mistakes. As it happened in 2017.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

I think fair, while clearly Vettel's fault it wasn't a malicious move and he tried his best to back off just couldn't.

 

[MYsummerfun33]

ultimately the FIA are too trigger happy, racing is about pushing the boundaries of both driver and machine, not being at the mercy of random punishments. I mean, one driver might get a 5 second penalty, yet another might get no further action for the same incident.

So personally, unless its a malicious act, like the days of Schumacher, then it should be put down to a racing incident or both parties get the same punishment.

 

[BrainsBush]

As written in another topic: I wish the stewards would penalize all the drivers the same way for the same kind of accidents in the same spirit of the race (e.g. first corners during first lap).

A driver got 10 seconds, another driver 0 seconds and today Vettel 5 seconds. All three accidents were more or less the same circumstances. Glad I'm not a steward

So to answer the question: was the 5 secs penalty fair? Answer: I honestly don't know.

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

Well, when looking at Bottas his actions in the past taking multiple cars out in the first corner without being penalized... This was not that different. Just a judgement mistake of Vettel. Racing incident imho.

And yes, I dislike the lack of consistency of the stewards. But tonight I watched a part of Indycars at Road America. What a joy to see them race and not being investigated and/or penalized for every fart like in F1. So it is possible...

/edit: to be clear I’m not a fan of how Ferrari seems to be the favorite child of FIA. And yes I found his action just . But he’s only human and makes judgement mistakes. This is racing after all. Not grandma’s knitting club.

Judgement mistakes and racing incidents are not the same thing.

 

[Short_Circut]

Bit hard to say. Yes, Vettel was 99.9% at fault but at the same time, he broke as early as he could while still being able to challenge Lewis ahead. It was simply a bit of lack of luck that his car locked up and he collided with Bottas


But some of the comments I've been hearing people say are absurdly ridiculous. People acting like the entire incident today deserves to be black flagged and Vettel having his S licence revoked

 

[M-Bimmer]

To pit and be at the back of the grid is already a penalty (with that painful 60 km speed limit in the pit) still charlie/fia was busy giving penalties left and right today...finally busy day at the office

 

[delpinsky]

Vettel didn't hit Bottas intentionally. He tried to avoid the accident. Race incident but fair penalty, since Bottas did the same in the past more than once and I do not remember something really bad happened to him...

 

[Deleted member 113561]

In my opinion the penalty should have been 10 sec pitstop penalty or even a drive through, reasons:

1. Lap 1 Turn 1
2. Bottas left clearly enough space and was even completely ahead
3. Vettel locked up (loss of car control)
4. It caused carnage, only thanks to the run off area (which the tracks has imo waaaay to much) nothing serious happend - if this would be Monaco, this would have been a red flag for sure!
5. 5 sec penalty was a joke, as Vettel was still infront of Bottas and Bottas obviously lost time in traffic - maybe they also should think about penalties like "give back the position" (before SC in ofc)

P.s. Of course it was not intentional, but it still ruined someones race (at least he didn't DNF but could still drive on with damage) - to penalize it is only fair!
P.p.s. Even Vettel says it was his fault, not Bottas's - I still can't understand why some people are blaming Bottas ... from F1.com
“My mistake,” he told the media. “I tried to brake early and get out of it, [but] I had no grip being so close to the cars in front and also next to me. Valtteri tried to get his position back, [which is] fair enough and I had nowhere to go obviously. The turn goes left and I tried to slow down, but with the grip I could only open the radius and that meant unfortunately I had to make contact to Valtteri.

 

[SuperLime]

Its lap 1, turn 1.
Vettel gets an equal start vs hamilton and bottas.
Boxed in between hamilton and bottas.
Cant go anywhere.
No downforce due to dirty air from Hamiltons car.
Locks up and contact is inevitable.
Bottas very unlucky.
Vettel made a judgement mistake, his penalty imho was that his race was pretty much ruined.
Both gets sort of saved by saftey car.
5-second penalty is probably get justified, a little bit harsh IMO.

 

[dcollins22585]

Boys have at it should be the rule.

 

[Patrick van der Meulen]

Judgement mistakes and racing incidents are not the same thing.

The one wouldn’t exist without the other. But you are right when you say not every racing incident is caused by a misjudgment of a driver. And neither does every misjudgment of a driver leads to a racing incident. But more often than not they go hand in hand.

 

[MikieC]

penalized for every fart like in F1,
Ah..... So thats what F1 stands for. ok

 

[AnklaX]

You should be allowed to make honest non-repeating mistakes not stupid or intentional ones. So I think the penalty was unfair.
IMO

 

[Bernd Graf]

It always seem that judges never have balls enough to punish bigger names properly. If someone like Stroll, Gross etc do that, penalties will be on totally different level.

Hey, Vettel has earned his way to the top, in F1, it's earned haha. Stroll has to earn his stripes.

 

[snyperal]

It's probably a fair penalty, a shame though that it essentially ruined Bottas' race.