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Thoughts?

"5 Seconds was appropriate but should be made to serve it with x number of laps"

So from within a specified number of laps of it being announced - say 3 or 5. Really just to avoid the team being able to delay it till they can minimize the risk of loss of track position. Point being 5 seconds isn't that big a deal if you've built up a gap to the cars behind, but 5 seconds stationary as you lose several track positions is more significant.

Also I kind of resent the fact that the teams can incorporate it into a strategy switch.

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5 second penalty to be served within 3 laps.

The idea that it can be either added to the end result or served at the next pit stop really allows teams to reduce the impact of the penalty down the bare minimum.

Bottas' race was destroyed because of that incident and I feel it warranted more than a 5 second penalty at the next convenient moment or at the end of the race.

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I think a drive through would have been better.

There is some thought that it may be called as a first lap incident, but as it wasn't mid pack I think a penalty was fair.

There's no perfect scenario here, especially when the guy that caused the incident finishes in front of the guy he punted off.

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I think the appropriate penalty ranges from 5 second time penalty to drive through.

I think a 5 second stop go (effectively a 30 second penalty with the pit lane time) is a bit extreme. No need for it to be anymore than a drive through. Personally with the benefit of hindsight I'd have said a 10 second time penalty would have probably been the most 'fair' IMO.

I get the points about it not seeming right for him to be able to finish ahead of Bottas but you can't decide penalties in that way because it just gets too convoluted.

I think it's more down to the fact that the penalty had literally no impact on Vettel's result whatsoever. It didn't impact his race at all.

For me, either you decide that it's a racing incident and that no penalty is warranted or you enforce a penalty that is actually substantial. What they did was a dog and pony show IMO.

meh. Racing incident. How many times have we seen first corner incidents go unpunished? As Hamilton put it in his interview, they're driving at the very edge, sometimes they make mistakes. I don't see what benefit a punishment serves

Totally agree - the thing about a drive through though is that's not consistent either, as the time lost varies from track to track.

One thought could be that they do, say 20-30 seconds on the pit lane limiter - but that has it's own safety implications !

Or maybe a separate stop / go box outside the pits - I like the idea but also don't think it's workable..

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I think the 5 second penalty was a bit weak on this occasion but I have no issue with it in general.

For me, a five second time penalty for something like that is very rarely going to be justice. If you spin someone at the first corner it's almost always going to drop them to the back of the field, and that's before any lasting impact the damage itself has (in Bottas' case caused a puncture which caused damage to the floor and hampered his ability to get back through the field).

Obviously there's an argument that Seb has already handicapped his own race in the process, but I personally don't believe that should then be considered punishment in itself.

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On the other hand, how are you going to make sure that justice is served?
I mean, two drivers crash and the victim has to retire from the race. The other driver then needs to retire as well?

It's racing, this is going to happen. Even if you made sure Vettel would have finished behind Bottas, Bottas' race would still have been ruined.

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No that's true but that is also with the benefit of hindsight. If Bottas didn't have damage or if Vettel did then the 5 seconds at the stop may have been enough to switch their places.

I agree it was a light penalty but IMO stewards need to just be consistent with what error gives what penalty and decide it based on that. I don't like the idea of the stewards giving out different penalties for similar incidents just so as to make sure that the driver's finishing position is impacted.

Say for instance Verstappen and Sainz both have a similar incident in Austria, they both lock up into T3 and take another driver off. Sainz is in a tight battle in the lower points positions so a 5 second penalty will drop him out of the points, race ruined. Verstappen is running a comfortable 4th and a 5 second penalty will do nothing to him at all. I don't think it would be right in that instance to give Verstappen a tougher penalty.

Racing incident.

The judgement should reflect the out come to an extent, like in normal law, you are judged by the consequence of you action - not the action itself. I.e. if you stab somebody and by chance they survive the consequences are very different to if, by chance they die.

Vettel destroyed Bottas' race, so it is without doubt 100% a penalty of some kind. If he had done the same move and somehow Bottas continued in P2 with no damage and Vettel destroyed his own race, it probably wouldn't be a penalty and the natural consequence may have been deemed enough on its own.

The extreme case is, what if that happened in a title decider and whoever finished ahead out of Bottas / Vettel in that race won the title and the same thing occurred. I think blag flag for Vettel then.

Black flag for a first corner race incident? A bit extreme, don't you think?

I can't decide myself. 5 sec is again subjective. Consider the two cases;

1) The beginning of the race. 5 sec will drop someone at the back of the grid, good bye race
2) Near the end of the race. If the driver has a gap with the next driver, then 5 sec is nothing

Which one is fair? Neither really I think.

I am more of the opinion that for first corner incidents there should be no punishment, unless the driver has done something on purpose or idiotic. None of which apply to this incident. So tough for Bottas, tough for Vettel, there is no reason to make it worse for either of them.

The fact that Bottas ended up behind Vettel is just pure luck, would he be happy if he finished in front of him? He'd still be out of the 2nd place that he'd normally finish, so I'm not sure what's the correct action.

And if Vettel end up losing the title by just 1 point (to another driver, not Bottas), what do you do? Do you go back review Chinnese GP and black flag Verstappen who finished ahead, albeit guilty of running Vettel's race?
Handing out punishments based on the end result of the race, will make it a lot messier and expose the rules to countless of different interpretations.

The incident that we saw is most likely a racing incident. Vettel got a better start than Bottas but couldn't swerve to the right as for some reason Hamilton wasn't upto that much speed as Vettel. Vettel had to keep an eye on Hamilton as well as on Bottas. Him locking his brakes wasn't intentional. Infact, once the brakes lock, for a moment the driver can do nothing as the grip just disappears from the car.

Race start incidents have to be taken with a pinch of salt because firstly, the cars are so close to each other. Anyone can brake late or early & cause an incident. Secondly, since the cars are so close, it's the best opportunity for every driver to gain a place or two as later the distances between cars grow.

If someone really makes an unnecessary move, then penalty should be a surety & big. Vettel's locking up & crashing into Bottas was more of a racing incident due to the factors stated above. It wasn't deliberate.

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I did not say the end result of the race or go back and change races. It was clear from immediately after the contact that Vettel went from 1 position behind, to one ahead and his car was undamaged once the nose was replaced and Bottas' was.

So would that have been an acceptable way to win a title? Drive into your opponent damaging his car, end up in front of him and win it. I don't think so. I would hope the rules would prevent such a scenario regardless of which driver was the beneficiary.

Not deliberate and yes a racing incident but that can still mean a penalty. No accident is deliberate. There is a lot more relaxation of the rules on lap 1 for sure, but generally going into the back of somebody is a penalty - even on lap 1.

As is locking up and under steering into somebody, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_wMUxrbic that got a penalty even when between team mates.

This sounds intentional, racing incident is not. What happened in France was definitely not intentional. I suspect that Vettel lost a lot of downforce behind Hamilton's car, just like Ricciardo did behind Max before, so he locked his brakes and couldn't stop in time. That is not a deliberate move and as sad as it is that Bottas's race was compromised, it happens in racing.

If you hit your opponent in the title fight, you can't guarantee that he will retire and you will not. It is just a very big gamble and all drivers would probably avoid it. Take the most recent 4 examples of drivers hitting each other, 1989, 1990, 1994 and 1997. The perpetrator always retired his car

dsq if its vettel.

no i think a drive thru is more appropriate for this kind of incident personally. its never going to be a fair outcome and the fact that there was a full safety car made is even worse. i do think the fia should be considering the effect of the incident on other cars.

I was surprised he got a penalty at all, given the amount the stewards have let slide at the first turn in races over the last few years. Yes it was clumsy, but this wasn't Grosjean levels of kamikaze that needed immediately rectifying. That said, over the last 12 months or so, Vettel has had a few knocks on the first lap, maybe that came into consideration.

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I think the penalty as is was maybe a little harsh but understandable. I would not have been up in arms if he didn't receive any penalty either. I don't think penalties should be individually tailored to ensure that a driver's race is negatively impacted either. I know it badly effected Bottas, but I'd rather see consistency than have the Stewards trying to enforce some kind of karma system.

Bottas got away scot-free when he took out Raikkonen in both Spain and Baku last year. Mercedes are complaining about nothing as per usual, just like when they were throwing around false accusations about Ferrari cheating with their battery (which also proved to be false).

I don't quite see how that was quite the same. Bottas didn't quite lock up under breaking and then didn't slow down enough. He braked before Kimi and went onto the curb. Don't think he had much other choice other than to possible outbrake kimi. But when he did what he did, the kerb made him loose control. From when he lost it, he couldn't really help what happened. if he went wider without going on the kerb, it is unlikely he wouldn't have hit Kimi anyway. I can't remember what they said now but he stewards IMO did a rather clear explanation on why it was 50 -50 blame on both drivers. Then Spain I thought Verstappen was the most to blame. Bottas created an opertunity or Kimi and Verstappen, but they chose to close in on Bottas when there was no space. Kimi had to because he had no space. Verstappen could have gone wider but may not have seen Bottas was still there. Others think different clearly, but I think a racing incident was right here.


Although with this latest incident with vettel and Bottas, if I look back over 2 years and the penalties were still generally as strict, the 5 second penalty for Vettel would be hopeless. But when I look at it now, I think it is right, though had no effect. But penalty points add something else to it I guess showing vettel was clearly in the wrong. If you look back at much worse incidents for example, (verstappen taking out Ricciardo in Hungary last year) That was a 10 second penalty. And just how much worse was this? Well, much worse. Verstappen suffered no damage and Ricciardo was knocked out of the race nearly taking palmer and other drivers with him. The difference between these accidence 2 was huge. And 10 seconds and 5 seconds isn't that different a penalty given what happened. I thought that one on Verstappen was perhaps a bit too slack and should have been a drive through. But if it was right by todays standards, then i can understand why some may think Vettel should not have had the penalty and just a couple of points on his licence.

But I would probably say the 5 second penalty was right. Vettel was clearly to blame. And Bottas very obviously suffered significantly more well before the penalty was decided. So in this sense, I'm not sure why this penalty shouldn't have been given. Did Bottas do anything wrong here? The rules last year and this seem to state that if one driver is clearly predominantly to blame for a first lap collision, they will get a penalty. One reason I think a penalty clearly was appropriate. They just seem more relaxed if drivers are fairly equally to blame.

A thought. Is it possible Vettel's past record was taken into account. For a driver of his calibre he certainly has got involved in or caused a fair few turn 1 accidents from 2016 onward.

You just opened your post with "The judgement should reflect the out come to an extent, like in normal law, you are judged by the consequence of you action - not the action itself."... and in order to apply that logic in F1, definitely you would need to wait for end result of the race in many cases. For all we know, a damage the innocent party suffered on the 1st lap may eventually lead to a retirement just 1 lap from the end.

Except that will cause it's own issues as those laps wouldn't be when they would naturally pit so it could effectively turn into a five second stop go...

Normally I'd call it a racing incident, but Vettel's penchant for first corner incidents means he deserved a penalty. A 5-second penalty was fine IMO.

Personally, penalties should be given for the transgression and not the effect, unless it is something egregious like Grosjean at Spa.

Or it is served by having to drive a sector to some delta time (creating plus 5 seconds). Or so.

5 second penalty x 2 since he also took out Grosjean.

I don´t have anything against the penalty as it was, and would have been ok with no penalty at all and a drive through as well. Seems like a fair call to me considering similar past incidents. Voted correct call.

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It was a minor misjudgement and warranted a minor penalty. The 5sec penalty is often inconsequential to the race result anyway, and serves more as an apportionment of blame rather than a punishment as such. I thought it was fair.

After years of getting frustrated with draconian penalties being dished out for every piece of contact I'm glad that the stewarding has become much more sensible now. Severe punishments for legitimate but poorly executed overtaking moves only serve to discourage wheel-to-wheel racing.

It was a racing incident: I voted 'correct call'.

After watching plenty of replays I'm convinced Vettel had nowhere to go. He wasn't doing anything crazy, just trying to get through the first corner - he braked at a reasonable distance, but locked up and went into Bottas. It's his mistake, but I don't feel he did anything penalty-worthy in the process. That Bottas came off worse from it is just poor luck on his part.

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He also got points on his licence I believe...

He locked up and missed the Apex meaning he braked to late. That being said it's hardly a massive error. Vettel does drop a lot of points from turn one incidents. I do thin it's something that would be worth him looking at. They're never major errors but putting them together since the start of 2016 there have been a fair few minor mistakes. If he could put it right he could perhaps save himself close to 50 points a season.

How did he brake late?

Did u see Bottas release the brake pedal to get into the corner quicker than Vettel, the loss of downforce caused the lock up.

But I guess this thread is really to bash Vettel and nothing else cue the penalty should not allow Vettel finish in front of Bottas, when has that ever been considered in F1?

With a drive thru penalty he would still have finished ahead of Bottas, its just Hamilton and his fans wanting more points.

From 2010 to 2015 Vettel was involved in almost no start accidents from what I can remember. Brazil 2012 is the only one and that wasn’t even his fault (Senna lunged from a long way back).

It feels like he’s trying too hard to prove himself at Ferrari recently.