Malaysian GP 2012 - Sepang International Circuit

[bhall]

Did anyone make popcorn?

I only ever eat popcorn while at a movie theatre. Is it just me?

[Pup]

I keep to a very low carb diet myself, so none for me.

Plus I never go to the movies anymore.

[raymondu999]

It works if you're at home watching a good movie too, though my preferred finger food in said scenario is a bag of crisps.

[JimClarkFan]

when I seen the incident initally I felt it was Vettel's fault, and even after that I still believe it was Vettel's fault

[mnmracer]

As there seems some confusion still:

In frames 1-3, Karthikeyan is going in a straight line. At this point, he was not one any white line anymore. At this point also, Vettel is already mostly past him, as the rear angle shows Vettel was already just past him when Karthikeyan rejoined the track. so he does not need to move to get off the white line; he's not on it.

Karthikeyan does however need to move slightly for the upcoming curving of the track, which he does in frames 3-5. In frame 5 however, you can see, that he is now at a point on the track that if he continued straight, he could have made the curve without touching the white line.

The problem occurs that while in frame 5 he is in a good position on the track, Karthikeyan keeps moving over to the left from frame 5 to the collision in frame 9. It is that move that caused the problem. That is what the stewards deemed unnecessary and why they gave him a penalty. (not that I agree with the penalty, just explaining).

Of course Vettel could have given him more space, but there was no reason for him to assume that was necessary, as there was plenty of space, certainly for the split-second it would have taken to get fully past.

[WhiteBlue]

Well if anyone listened to what Narain said things would be more clear on the incident. He hit the white line, rear end came around so he had to catch it but Vettel was there so they collided. = Race incident.
Vettel could have left more space, Narain could have taken it easier.

That story has no credibility and it wasn't believed by the stewards. Johnny Herbert has publicly stated after the race that Karthikeyan should not have moved right into Vettel.

Kartikeyan slipped on the white line at corner entry. The accident was on corner exit. The slip was at least 50m away from the point of accident and he had well recovered from that by the time he passed the corner apex. All video evidence - and most likely the telemetry traces shown at the steward's meeting - showed that Karthikeyan had no traction problems and had room enough to avoid the white line. A simple case of cop out on his behalves that did not work in the face of the evidence.

mmracer, a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. This explains your problem here.

The real problem for Vettel started with the international comment going out that he had cut across Kartihikeyan just like in Turkey 2010. At this time nobody could have analysed the accident with care or all material available. Somebody just had an impression and aired it to the world because it made a nice hero to zero story. As you hear from some of our honoured members here it was just what they wanted to hear and they see no reason to look at further evidence.

Then there are also - as one can expect - those who fabricate their own rules what drivers are supposed to do and not. As you say the facts are simple and clear:

• Karthikeyan was under blue flags and was required to let any lapping driver pass as soon as possible. That means right at that corner exit and not during the next three corners as someone suggested.
• Vettel had to give enough room, which he did. Video evidence at the point when Vettel was alongside showed between two and three wheel widths of lateral space. This was plenty enough even if Kartikeyan had to move a little bit to the right to avoid touching the white line once again.
• Vettel did not go left. His driving was correct. He had given room and then ran in a straight line. He was completely entitled to choose his line as long as he gave Karthikeyan the room, which he did.

The accident was entirely Karthikeyan's fault. What is even worse is the arrogance and sense of entitlement he showed in the press statements. He spoke of bullying when he was supposed to make room by the rules as if he had the right to race the leaders. It appears the guy doesn't even know the rules, like some of the gentlemen with more adventurous opinions on this board.

The same people who cannot be bothered to appreciate your effort for a solid analysis then come down very hard on young Vettel for his "rudeness". That is sheer hypocrisy. Why all this sudden political correctness that we have not historically seen in F1? Senna, Irvine, Mansell, Picquet, Villeneuve, Montoya or Schumacher were never shy to offer fisticuffs, rude gestures or rude language. It was always accepted as an over reaction to the massive emotions that are released in a driver at that time. You can make a page long list of drivers who approached each other with less than gentleman like demeanour. I'm not saying it is ideal, but we should let it go without a lot of silly ado. As someone said at Autosport forums: http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?s ... &p=5646059

To be fair the commentary especially on the forums is mainly from those simply looking for an excuse to have a go at a driver they love to hate on. A perfect ivory tower was erected and occupied by those who could not wait to do so.

I let that stand as my final word to the gentlemen who call for PC here. Let them have their hate and have my thanks for a job well done.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The simple fact of the matter remains:

If you are going to overtake, be that under blue flags or not, you must be sure to give room. Now I like Vettel and all, but Karthikeyan is hardly to blame in this instance.

If you view the incident in real time, you realise maybe Vettel was cutting it too fine with a driver who was not on the same wave length.

Simple as.

Move on

[bhall]

The simple facts of the matters also remain:

It was a minor incident between a struggling two-time Champ and an also-ran who's never been discussed this much. It was also two weeks ago.

[GrizzleBoy]

You cant just look at these frames though. There is more to the incident than just a second or so before the impact.

You're still not taking into account, the fact that Sebastians car is angled inwards towards the space where Karthikeyans car would be heading for almost all the frames.

Therefore not taking into consideration of the fact that Vettel performed the overtake as a diagonal divebomb across another cars racing line, which means he wouldn't have been in Karthikeyans mirrors.

Which means that Karthikeyan will have only seen Vettel shooting past him at an angle that suggested he was going to run him off the road.


Vettel took a shorter line through the turn to compensate for Karthikeyan who WAS at that point recovering from going off the track (after letting Hamilton through) on the first part of the double right hander and was accelerating out of the second part, aiming for the racing line.

Vettels sharp entry meant that his exit was going to have to be deeper than usual, which carried him across the track at a harsher angle than usual.

Meaning he was cutting across the normal racing line on the exit instead of following it through the exit of the turn.

Again, that angle meant that he was not in Karthikeyans mirrors, but was also still shaping up to divebomb across Karthikeyans car. A recipe for a racing incident.

As far as Karthikeyan would have known, someone who wasn't in his mirrors a second ago, had just flown by him and was cutting off the road in front of him.


Vettel didn't need to attack the overtake like he did and he didn't need to swoop in front of Karthikeyan like he did.

Did Karthikeyan make a bad move? Yes.

Was it needlessly provoked? Yes.

[Giblet]

We don't need this thread. You can discuss this in the race thread where the incident happened. The incident has been discussed to death, and there is nothing new but the same old stuff reworded. If every incident gets its own post, it will be almost impossible to find them. If it happened in the race, and is nothing special (like two cars making contact) then the race thread is the place to discuss it.

Posts merged from discrete thread.

[ArchAngel]

Hmmm... Popped in to have a look-see what the renewed activity in the thread was. Guess I'll just go back instead to watching the popcorns pop.

[myurr]

Of course Vettel could have given him more space, but there was no reason for him to assume that was necessary, as there was plenty of space, certainly for the split-second it would have taken to get fully past.

Surely the reason why giving more space was both advisable and necessary has been played out?

Had Vettel given even 20cm more space there would not have been an incident at all and we would have maybe had a couple of posts about him cutting it a bit fine.

[Maelstrom]

I'm wondering if Vettel loses the WDC by a few points this year how many more names he is going to call NK.

[Shrieker]

I'm wondering if Vettel loses the WDC by a few points this year how many more names he is going to call NK.

Not as polite as this I reckon :-"

[PNSD]

I'm wondering if Vettel loses the WDC by a few points this year how many more names he is going to call NK.

As many as Alonso called Petrov in 2010.

Look, this is racing. Vettel knows this and if that is the case, that he loses by a few points then he will accept that these things happen in motorsport. He was not completely faultless in the incident, and he will learn.

Take 2008 for example, split by 1 point, won on the last corner of the last lap of the last gp. However, you could count numerous occasions for both Massa and Lewis where they lost both through driver error, as well as team/car faults.