2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Hamilton vs Vettel incident

[Xwang]

Can all this please stop now? If people moved on then this would not get blown bigger and bigger with each news release hyping things up more.

I don't think Vettel crashed into Hamilton intentionally. Go check his steering inputs from onboard footage. He swerves out to give Hamilton a piece of his mind. He then steers closer to Hamilton to make sure he sees him. Being so enraged he seems to forget to straighten the car again - one hand being in the air and looking at Hamilton. Thus contact. I see no sudden turn in when alongside Hamilton. Why are we not shown Vettel's steering input to conclusive proof the above correct - or indeed incorrect as we only see Vettel's onboard from the side? That should prove conclusively if he intentionally turned in or if the contact was a consequince of him not paying attention. I do not mean to say that Vettel is not guilty. Even though I am a fan of his, his way of handling the "brake test" was not correct. But I do think that we should move on and so should the FIA. Race stewards have decided and that should be it. How many a soccer or rugby game left fans in outrage because the ref missed something the opposing team did? They never move back and award the goal or try - even when video proof afterwards show something illegal that the ref missed. Just admit there was a mistake if they feel there was one with the penalty and move on - perhaps force a public apology from Vettel or something.

They could at least show us things like steerings inputs and so on. Hamilton's brake data is thrown around the web with hundreds of article's but not steering? In my book there is a difference between turning in intententionally to cause contact and contact because of not turning in away. The latter is less severe than the first. Both are still very wrong though!

Anyway, we'll have to wait till Monday to hear the official verdict. Till then I guess we will continue to debate in circles between guilty and not guilty and which penalty should or should not be applied.

Just my 2 cents worth...

MAMBA

I agree

[bonjon1979]

Can all this please stop now? If people moved on then this would not get blown bigger and bigger with each news release hyping things up more.

I don't think Vettel crashed into Hamilton intentionally. Go check his steering inputs from onboard footage. He swerves out to give Hamilton a piece of his mind. He then steers closer to Hamilton to make sure he sees him. Being so enraged he seems to forget to straighten the car again - one hand being in the air and looking at Hamilton. Thus contact. I see no sudden turn in when alongside Hamilton. Why are we not shown Vettel's steering input to conclusive proof the above correct - or indeed incorrect as we only see Vettel's onboard from the side? That should prove conclusively if he intentionally turned in or if the contact was a consequince of him not paying attention. I do not mean to say that Vettel is not guilty. Even though I am a fan of his, his way of handling the "brake test" was not correct. But I do think that we should move on and so should the FIA. Race stewards have decided and that should be it. How many a soccer or rugby game left fans in outrage because the ref missed something the opposing team did? They never move back and award the goal or try - even when video proof afterwards show something illegal that the ref missed. Just admit there was a mistake if they feel there was one with the penalty and move on - perhaps force a public apology from Vettel or something.

They could at least show us things like steerings inputs and so on. Hamilton's brake data is thrown around the web with hundreds of article's but not steering? In my book there is a difference between turning in intententionally to cause contact and contact because of not turning in away. The latter is less severe than the first. Both are still very wrong though!

Anyway, we'll have to wait till Monday to hear the official verdict. Till then I guess we will continue to debate in circles between guilty and not guilty and which penalty should or should not be applied.

Just my 2 cents worth...

MAMBA

In both rugby and football they analyse footage post match and may give further sanctions. Especially if you start saying the ref was wrong.

[Restomaniac]

Can all this please stop now? If people moved on then this would not get blown bigger and bigger with each news release hyping things up more.

I don't think Vettel crashed into Hamilton intentionally. Go check his steering inputs from onboard footage. He swerves out to give Hamilton a piece of his mind. He then steers closer to Hamilton to make sure he sees him. Being so enraged he seems to forget to straighten the car again - one hand being in the air and looking at Hamilton. Thus contact. I see no sudden turn in when alongside Hamilton. Why are we not shown Vettel's steering input to conclusive proof the above correct - or indeed incorrect as we only see Vettel's onboard from the side? That should prove conclusively if he intentionally turned in or if the contact was a consequince of him not paying attention. I do not mean to say that Vettel is not guilty. Even though I am a fan of his, his way of handling the "brake test" was not correct. But I do think that we should move on and so should the FIA. Race stewards have decided and that should be it. How many a soccer or rugby game left fans in outrage because the ref missed something the opposing team did? They never move back and award the goal or try - even when video proof afterwards show something illegal that the ref missed. Just admit there was a mistake if they feel there was one with the penalty and move on - perhaps force a public apology from Vettel or something.

They could at least show us things like steerings inputs and so on. Hamilton's brake data is thrown around the web with hundreds of article's but not steering? In my book there is a difference between turning in intententionally to cause contact and contact because of not turning in away. The latter is less severe than the first. Both are still very wrong though!

Anyway, we'll have to wait till Monday to hear the official verdict. Till then I guess we will continue to debate in circles between guilty and not guilty and which penalty should or should not be applied.

Just my 2 cents worth...

MAMBA

In both rugby and football they analyse footage post match and may give further sanctions. Especially if you start saying the ref was wrong.

Even more so if you have also previously all but called another ref a **** thus proving you don't know how to behave at times.

[Phil]

I don't think Vettel crashed into Hamilton intentionally. Go check his steering inputs from onboard footage. He swerves out to give Hamilton a piece of his mind.

MAMBA

Sorry, but it doesnt matter. Even if we could see his hands physically move the steering wheel, one could still claim it was accidental.

Vettel should never have gone side by side with Hamilton. Worse, he had all the time during the red flag, the consequent race and post race to reconsider and apologize or address it if it wasnt intentional. Failing to do so and one cant sympathize if a more severe punishment could be around the corner.

This is all a waste of the time anyway since the official FIA steward report states that the swerve was deemed intentional. The topic now has become if such a deemed intentional act deserves more than the 10 second stop and go penalty, which according to insider reports, was given to not interfere with the WDC race.

[Jolle]

What amazes me is that you can tell the race director to --- off, do the racing equivalent of a head but and then tell the press “he had it coming”... in any other professional sport he would of been benched the rest of the season.

(Why is --- bleeped here?)

[drunkf1fan]

Telemetry Data for those that still needed more convincing.
http://www.zupimages.net/up/17/26/1han.jpg

Thanks. I'd have to disagree with the comment on the first graph, that's not steady deceleration since there is a period of 0.4s with the same velocity, followed by a period of a steady deceleration. And these 0.4s are enough for a driver to think "that the guy in front is about to catapult his a$$ and throw dirt in my face". Like Rosberg said, Hamilton is very skilled in these situations, he knows how to drive on the edge and not cross it. 0.4s may look insignificant, but these guys fight for 0.001s lap by lap, race by race and for them and their reflexes, it's a lot...

Also, have to say, FIA announcement on Monday is a disgrace, saying that in all 3 SC restarts Hamilton behaved the same. Like we can see in the video by F1 on YouTube, first time he kept almost steady speed around T15 (10-12s on those graphs) with total difference of 10-11kmh. Second time difference was 30kmh, and third time he kept it on 70kmh flat.

You do realise as they came out of t15, you could see the safety car in t16. The gap was still no where near enough from Ham to the safety car. If Ham gunned it out of T15 , he'd be slowing for the safety car half way to the safety car line. Vettel could wait to t16 before gunning it leaving a massive gap and still catch Hamilton when he had to slow down.

There was 100% no way in hell Vettel would drop loads of time to Hamilton if he did accelerate late out of that corner and there was like a 0.05% chance Hamilton would choose that moment to gun it, because he'd get to the safety car and have to slow. That scenario would also almost certainly cause multiple crashes into T1.

Vettel didn't need to be that close, he should have faster reactions, he should know Hamilton needs a gap to the safety car before exiting T16, he should know that if Hamilton did go earlier, it makes no difference. It also looks to me like every other car knows no one is accelerating out of T15, no one else came close to contact. Even more if you watch Perez, after the first impact Vettel accelerates to pull alongside, Perez also accelerated thinking maybe Hamilton had already bolted, after the gap closed minimally he saw what was happening and backed off. So the acceleration Vettel did.... which was way more than just not losing a bit of speed for a fraction of a second, wasn't anywhere near enough for Perez to not have time to both accelerate then back off without coming close to contact.

Also worth mentioning, at first Vettel insisted he accelerated out of the corner than braked hard, once again, neither of these things is true. I think maybe Vettel was distracted by something, forgot SC was coming in, saw the large gap, expected Ham to accelerate quickly to stay within 10 car lengths or, I don't know, but if he was paying attention he had zero reason to be that close at that point and no excuse for hitting Hamilton the first time let alone the second time.

[drunkf1fan]

People keep banging on about Hamilton not touching his brakes but a brake test is about the person behind having to brake, not the guy in front. Hybrid F1 cars experience significant retardation when lifting off the throttle so the fact that Hamilton didn’t use the brake pedal just shows he was being smart about it.
He did basically the same thing at the previous restart, lift off, hope the guy behind has to brake and take avoiding action, then floor it when they do. That meets with my understanding of a brake test (though it's by no means as dangerous as one performed under racing conditions).
It was telling that we saw a very different restart from Hamilton after the red flag, where he failed to pull out a gap before the line and was under pressure for the first few corners.

If Hamilton did as you said, they he 'brake checked' him at the exit of t15, Vettel brakes hard, Hamilton guns it....... in that situation Hamilton catches the safety car with 400-500m left to the safety car line, Hamilton has to slam on the brakes, Vettel closes behind and catches Hamilton easily. What you're saying makes no sense at all. SO he wants Vettel to brake hard, then 10-15 seconds later he's going to gun it hard when the chance of catching the safety car before the SC line has gone.

Where you're saying is completely impossible because it wouldn't work at all in any way.

The second restart was the same as the first, AND it's the same at every single other restart for the past decade, under Vettel and any other driver, you slow the pack up to create a gap to the safety car otherwise your restart gets screwed up when you go to early. That has happened before, when it happens it usually means those further back carry more speed, it massively increases chances of being piled into from behind and it massively increases the chance of the guys at the front losing places.

Hamilton did a different restart and took it much later down the straight precisely because on the previous restart a certain idiot behind him hit his car twice and from Hamilton's point of view, wasn't punished and he got damaged from it. He took a non optimal restart and one in which Vettel was much closer to him into T1 as a result.

[Wynters]

Being so enraged he seems to forget to straighten the car again - one hand being in the air and looking at Hamilton. Thus contact.

Once more the convincing defence, "Four times WDC forgets to steer!"

I fairly sure that, were Vettel to read this thread, he'd much prefer people thought that he simply had a moment of red mist (as his comments afterwards clearly indicate) rather than people thinking he was so incompetent in a car that he would forget. to. steer. It's not like he wasn't looking directly at the object he was about to swing into.

On a saner note, if the stewards do decide a further punishment then I hope it is no worse than a DSQ from Baku (on top of the penalty points already applied). I believe that would be a sufficient deterrent.

A grid drop at the next race would be a sop to the crowd but, given the ridiculous gap between Merc/Fer and the rest, it would simply limit Vettel to finishing, at worst (barring in race misfortune), 3rd.

[TAG]

Vettel feels that Hamilton slowed down unexpectedly coming out of the corner. Even if he's wrong and Hamilton didn't slow down that doesn't make it a lie; it would just mean that he's mistaken.

A mistake is something that once proven wrong with factual data, you don't keep denying it. So I think the word you're looking for is not mistaken but delusional.

Anyway, based on the admonishment Vettel got last year after Mexico what I've bolded below is his biggest hurdle to overcome in the tribunal.

In the light of this sincere apology and strong commitment, the FIA President has decided, on an exceptional basis, not to take disciplinary action against Mr Vettel by bringing this matter before the FIA International Tribunal.

The FIA will always condemn the use of offensive language in motor sport – especially when directed at officials and/or fellow participants – and expects all participants in its Championships to be respectful and mindful of the example they set for the public and the younger generation in particular.

The FIA takes this opportunity to advise that, in the event of any future incident similar to the one that occurred in Mexico, disciplinary action will be taken by bringing such incident before the FIA International Tribunal to be judged.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Link -> FIA launches investigation into Vettel clash with Hamilton

The FIA has decided to hold a formal investigation into whether or not further action is required against Sebastian Vettel following his controversial clash with Lewis Hamilton behind the safety car at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Amid ongoing suggestions that motor racing’s governing body was not satisfied with the 10-second stop-go penalty handed to Vettel for his part in the move, the FIA confirmed on Wednesday that the situation was being looked into again.

A spokesman for the FIA said that evidence would be evaluated next week and a decision on whether or not more action is needed will be made before the next race at the Red Bull Ring.

A FIA statement said: “Following the recent incident at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in which Car 5 (Sebastian Vettel) was involved in a collision with Car 44 (Lewis Hamilton), on Monday 3rd July, the FIA will further examine the causes on the incident in order to evaluate whether further action is necessary.

“A statement regarding the outcome of this process will be made available before the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix.”

Anything less than a Race ban and a STERN warning that, repeat another such instance would result in AT LEAST 5 RACE BAN, would be too leniant. Vettel's behavior need to be corrected and should be put in the right place to ensure he doesn't repeat his serial offending ways.

[Cannonballer]

will the FIA have access to Vettel's highspeed driver facing camera footage?

Telemetry could tell us if there was steering input from vettel to hit ham, but the footage could reveal if it was intentional/accidental.

What more intent than Vettel's own words "he brake checked me me so that's what you get" do we need?

This! If it was accidental one would expect him to say that he did not mean to cause the contact.

[ripper]

Sorry I still haven't understand one thing: Vettel took 10 sec stop&go for which infraction? Hitting Hamilton behind or on side? If it's the first it's exaggerated, if it's the second I agree it's a light punishment. Nevertheless a stop&go during race and a race ban after some days looks like a bad patch to me

[marvin78]

And I say it again: Thread can be closed. At least until there really is something new to discuss. This is all the same since page 1

I take it you missed the FIA announcement?

No. I did not. But nervertheless the discussion here stayed the same.

[NathanOlder]

It stayed the same as there are still a handful trying to convince everyone that Vettel did nothing wrong and its Hamilton who should be punished. Thats why the conversation is stuck.

[adrianjordan]

Sorry I still haven't understand one thing: Vettel took 10 sec stop&go for which infraction? Hitting Hamilton behind or on side? If it's the first it's exaggerated, if it's the second I agree it's a light punishment. Nevertheless a stop&go during race and a race ban after some days looks like a bad patch to me

Hitting Ham from the side.