myurr wrote:Feel free to quote the rules, but instead of quoting your interpretation try quoting the actual rules in full.
For those too lazy to read my previous post I will do the foot work and post the link given in this thread.
viewtopic.php?p=328641#p328641
2012 Sporting regulations §20.5
20.5 As soon as a car is caught by another car which is about to lap it during the race the driver must allow the faster driver past at the first available opportunity. If the driver who has been caught does not allow the faster driver past, waved blue flags will be shown to indicate that he must allow the following driver to overtake.
The sporting regulations are very clear. A driver to be lapped has to allow the other driver past at the first available opportunity. The lapping driver has the explicit right to pass.
Show me the rule that states a blue flag indicates a zone where a driver must dive out of the way for all following cars immediately. Show me the rule where it states that an overtaking car has no duty of car to provide room to a lapped car and can run them as far off line as they see fit. Show me the rule where it states that a driver must instinctively know where a following car is even when he's coming from 100 meters away and is not in the lapped cars mirrors at any point during the manoeuvre.
Just read the rule book and stop making up requests for quotes of rules that you only imagine.
You say he didn't pay attention to his mirrors, show me any point where Vettel was even in his mirrors!
1. I did'nt say that. Do a proper quotation the next time!
2. NK never claimed that he did not see Vettel approaching. That would have been the first excuse every driver would make if he could plausibly make it. So the whole story you are making up is a red herring.
Why can't you see that Vettel should not have been so close in the first place and should have given the lapped car more respect? Why can't you see that Vettel could see NK throughout the entire manoeuvre but that NK could only see Vettel during the last fraction of a second as he drew alongside. He could most probably have heard that he was somewhere there but since when is that enough to choose a driving line?
I told you already that Vettel left enough lateral space. The whole notion of giving more respect to lapped cars is putting the rule on lapping upside down. The leading cars will always be wary of the back markers not seeing them or not being clearly identified vs a competing other back marker, but they need to keep their pace as we have seen Alonso or Hamilton doing before Vettel because they are racing each other. The whole point of §20.5 is that the back markers are not in the race with the leaders. This is why they have the duty to make space for the leaders in order to not destroy the racing experience for the audience. A minute audience cares whether NK comes home before PdlR or vice versa. But the global public wanted to see the world champion attack the other three leaders on a drying track. We have been denied of that spectacle because NK effed up.
Vettel had the better visibility, the better control of the car, and far more room - he should have used that room to make the pass more safely but chose not to. Much of the blame has to lie at his feet because of that.
That is your view which I reject due to the discussed specifics. There was plenty enough lateral separation.
Edit: Also show me the rule where the blue flag applies to more than one car behind. All the definitions of the rules I have just googled quote car in singular form.
This is a bit silly, isn't it. I'm not going into semantics. When a rule talks about a car, every car is meant. So if a second car comes along the rule applies to that car as well.
Good for Checo, we saw what happened to Maldonado in Melbourne.
This question is so obviously loaded, that I'm almost inclined not to answer it. 