2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Hamilton vs Vettel incident

[Just_a_fan]

Who knew that very Michael would become 7 times World Champion?

And continued to cheat/pull dirty tricks whilst he did so.

[NathanOlder]

It would be pathetic if due to the presusre coming from (essentialy) the UK Todt decides to punish Vettel with one race ban. If he is banned for one race, should not be the first penaly be invalidated?. I don´t see fair to receive a double penaly for the same move.

You tell that to poor Danni Kvyat

As for Baku, the best and fairest thing to do is remove Seb from the race result.

That way it put Seb and Lewis equal on points , drivers wont consider doing anything like this again and we can go do battle in Austria.

It also puts Mclaren 1pt behind Sauber instead of 2

[Restomaniac]

I wonder if Liberty have a hand in this? I wonder if they are none to happy with the negative press? I imagine they have had people asking how could Vettel end up being better off after causing it?

One could say that Hamilton played a clever game with his (paraphrasing) 'that action and finishing 4th' as some probably asked how that can happen. Yes Vettel got lucky with the Hamilton headrest but some would of still asked it anyway. Others would probably point out that without the red flag caused by Vettel's actions then Hamilton wouldn't have got out if the car which caused it anyway. His 'think of the kids' comments were clearly massive nudge towards to the beak as well.

Vettel would normally I assume use the 'You have already punished me' reasoning but with Kvyat having that very thing happen to him in the previous race I imagine the FIA will be able to bat that off. Also almost all sports have a disrepute clause and/or law in the operating rules as it is a brilliant catch all as it can mean whatever you want it to. If the FIA want they can nail Seb to the wall. I don't expect they will and I have a sneaking feeling they will decided to increase the points on his super licence and use that as a reason. They could then point out that Vettel has had this coming . It would then however give him a clean licence again IIRC.

This could of course all be BS and nothing could come of it. Who knows

[Restomaniac]

It would be pathetic if due to the presusre coming from (essentialy) the UK Todt decides to punish Vettel with one race ban. If he is banned for one race, should not be the first penaly be invalidated?. I don´t see fair to receive a double penaly for the same move.

You tell that to poor Danni Kvyat

As for Baku, the best and fairest thing to do is remove Seb from the race result.

That way it put Seb and Lewis equal on points , drivers wont consider doing anything like this again and we can go do battle in Austria.

It also puts Mclaren 1pt behind Sauber instead of 2

A good point.
If they ban him then they will in effect probably be giving Hamilton a lead in the WDC.

[Just_a_fan]

It would be pathetic if due to the presusre coming from (essentialy) the UK Todt decides to punish Vettel with one race ban. If he is banned for one race, should not be the first penaly be invalidated?. I don´t see fair to receive a double penaly for the same move.

If they do anything (and I don't think they will do anything) it would just be DSQ Vettel from Baku's result. That would avoid the double penalty whilst showing a strong intention to others. They could leave Ferrari's points in place to show it's a driver punishment. There is precedent for this from when McLaren were excluded from the season but the drivers kept their points.

I think what will actually happen is much talking behind closed doors followed by Vettel showing remorse in a public apology. A slap on the wrists, in effect.

[Moose]

I think anyone claiming that Todt is just bending to pressure from the press is taking crazy pills. Most of this forum just spent 30 pages discussing the fact that Vettel deliberately caused a crash, and that he got off extraordinarily leniently for having done that.

To then claim that the head of the FIA thinking "hey, that was pretty lenient, maybe we should look at that" is bowing to pressure from the press, and not just acknowledging the truth of the situation is insane.

[Vanja #66]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79D0axL ... tu.be&t=48

Could we get some comments on speeds of cars #5 and #44 in first and second restart before, during and after the apex (I advise looking at it a few times before final verdict )?

[Phil]

I don't want to re-chew this stuff again, but something I think has been missing for this past 38 pages is a proper analyze over WHY, WHEN and WHAT.

Here is the track of Baku:



Note that the incident took place at T15. That is second last corner before you have a segment that is flat-out and part of the start/finish straight.

At the first safety-car, Hamilton pretty much floored it at T16. This caught Vettel out a bit but was crucial in not giving an advantage to those behind who can use a massive tow down that long straight. One of the issues with this was that Hamilton nearly caught up the safety car down the straight. The team informed him of that right after. But the track layout also makes it incredibly difficult to gauge when to floor it to not get it too close considering the track are a few 90° corners and a long straight (with no visibility across the track).

On the second safety-car restart, Hamilton may have aimed to bunch up the field a bit earlier to give him some more margin. According to the FIA report and the telemetry they looked at, Hamilton was within 3kmh of what he did previously through that corner on the last safety-car restart. Vettel was way closer though. Hamilton also came around T15, the safety car still rather close. This meant that the only time to make room for the safety car and not run risk of catching it on the long straight would have been to slow down between T15 and T16.

In other words, I think the 1st collision when Vettel ran into Hamilton was unfortunate but can happen given the layout of this track and the difficulty of the tires and warming procedure. It was also normal that the "bunching up" at the race-restart would have to occur somewhere along those two corners given that leaving it too late would risk giving your opponent behind a very good tow and opportunity to pass on the straight.

I also feel that Vettel was perhaps a bit too "opportunistic" with wanting to be as close as possible to Lewis to possibly get a run up on that straight, given at the earlier stage of the race, it seemed it would be the only real chance at victory given a very strong Mercedes. hence why he ended up being that close.

[BanMeToo]

I strongly believe that Vettel should not get a race ban. I guess DSQ from Baku would be understandable. In fact they probably should have done that during the red flag period, rather than give him a 10 sec stop/go....

[Andres125sx]

I think anyone claiming that Todt is just bending to pressure from the press is taking crazy pills. Most of this forum just spent 30 pages discussing the fact that Vettel deliberately caused a crash, and that he got off extraordinarily leniently for having done that.

To then claim that the head of the FIA thinking "hey, that was pretty lenient, maybe we should look at that" is bowing to pressure from the press, and not just acknowledging the truth of the situation is insane.

+1

Also I think it´s important what the drivers say after the race. Vettel stated he was upset because of a brake test, and that´s what you get when you brake test someone. So...

1- He´s still basing his defence on a false statement, as Lewis didn´t brake at all
2- He´s justifying his reaction because of the brake test, so no remorse at all, he really think if someone brake test you then you can intentionally crash with him
3- He´s never apologized and even criticized the stewarts for not punishing Lewis, who did nothing wrong
4- Basically he´s saying everyone is guilty (Lewis and stewads) except himself, who is the only real responsible

Sincerely, his penalty was a joke. Crashing with another car intentionally, and under SC, is one of the most serious mistakes I´ve ever seen from a F1 driver, and it´s some decades watching F1...

If they now reconsider the penalty, that would only be fair and adecuate. Claiming that would only be due to media pressure is so out of reality I can´t grasp how can people state that

[Andres125sx]

I am sure vettel would have seen replays later and would be regretting what he did

If true, he would have accepted some responsability on his part, what he didn´t do yet

[Andres125sx]

Can we stop with this junior formulas... C'mon this kids wont suddenly ram into each other...

Kids are imitating machines, that´s the way we humans (and any animal btw) learn, and Vettel is a 4 x WDC who is an idol for thousands kids all around the world so sincerely, your statement look pretty bold to me, if his idol do it (and never regret), there´re huge chances some of his immature fans will imitate him


When I watched it live Vettel´s onboard showed his car jump due to the second collision, wich couldn´t be noticed with that replay. I noticed when none said a word about the second collision, and wondered if he crashed with Lewis, but thought that was not possible and he probably did run over some debris. My mind couldn´t accept a top F1 driver crashing with his rival intentionally under SC, but sadly that was what happened.

Totally unaceptable, a race ban is the least any driver would get at any other category, but this is F1 so we´ll see what happens in the end...

[Manoah2u]

It would be pathetic if due to the presusre coming from (essentialy) the UK Todt decides to punish Vettel with one race ban. If he is banned for one race, should not be the first penaly be invalidated?. I don´t see fair to receive a double penaly for the same move.

Vettlel should'nt receive a race ban,

You can't polish a turd but you can roll it around in glitter.

exactly why vettel should recieve a race ban

[TAG]

Telemetry Data for those that still needed more convincing.

[Manoah2u]

It also puts Mclaren 1pt behind Sauber instead of 2

Actually, no and no.

With current results,
Sauber has 5 points total,
and Mclaren has 2 points total.
So they're 3 points behind right now.
Wehrlein has 5 points, Alonso has 2.

IF Vettel gets DSQ for Azerbaijan,
then Alonso will get 2 points added to his tally,
and Wehrlein will get 1 point added to his tally.
It would reduce the gap from 3 points behind to 2 points behind.

BUT, additionally, Ericsson then would be finishing P10, so getting his first point in F1 this year.

That would mean :

Wehrlein: 6 points
Alonso : 4 points
Ericsson : 1 point.

And in constructors:

Sauber: 7 points
Mclaren: 4 points.

That would make a difference of 3 points, still.

So no, you're rather wrong there as it wouldn't change a thing for the point gap between Sauber and Mclaren.

It would have some interesting results for the rest of the drivers and constructors points.

Vettel would get 12 points less (and perhaps another point on his license, if unlucky 3, which would see him ADDITIONALLY also take a race ban), resulting in a 141 points total, and lewis 2 points more, thus equal in points, but because Lewis then has more races completed, he'd be the leader in he championship.

additionally, Ocon would get 2 points more,upping him to 37 points total, magnussen 13 total, sainz 31.

Ferrari then would have 214 total of constructor poings, and Mercedes 252, which would result in a point difference of 38, instead of the current 24. Force India would get 81 points, Toro Rosso 35 (only 2 points behind williams in that case), and Haas 23.

It would make the pack much tighter in the standings.