Canada 2019 and Vettel’s Penalty
At the risk of wading into controversy, let’s examine the Sebastian Vettel penatly in Canada.
I have my own opinions but let’s look at all sides of the argument and see what actually
happened and what the conequences were. So let’s review… the incident.
Vettel was leading the race from Hamilton pretty convincingly through the first stint
but after the switch to Hards (in which Hamilton lost a lot of time through the pit stop phase)
Lewis pegged him back quite significantly as Vettel struggled to keep pace on the new
rubber. Hamilton clawed himself into DRS range and
was putting real pressure on Vettel. The battle was very much on for the lead, here.
On lap 48, Hamilton was really hassling the Ferrari as the pair drove up behind the a
couple of backmarkers. Into the turn 3/4 chicane, Vettel lost the
back end slightly, sliding wide and ultimately driving onto the grass before spilling onto
the track in front of Hamilton. As Vettel ended up skirting, with reduced
speed, across the whole track, Hamilton had to take avoiding action and, subsequently
the race was able to continue with the cars in the same order.
For this, Vettel was given a 5 second time penalty plus two points on his super licence
as the stewards ‘determined that Vettel left the track at turn 3 and rejoined the
track at turn 4 in an unsafe manner, forcing Hamilton off the track with Hamilton having
to take evasive action to avoid a collision’. That’s the official word from the stewards.
But let’s track back through the incident and remember there’s the letter of the law,
the spirit of the law as well as the spirit of competition to bear in mind.
The rules are supposed to work and be written and implemented in a way that allows as much
racing and competition as possible so people don’t feel too afraid to have a go or push
the limited. But you’ve also got to make sure the playing
field is fair for all and people aren’t getting unreasonably or unsafe impeded.
So that’s why you can’t just weave back and and forth to keep someone behind. It’s
unfair and potentially unsafe. So, just to get a couple of things out of
the way: This was subtly different from one of those
‘out braking yourself and running across the chicane’ numbers where you basically
save yourself from being overtaken by skipping the corner, even if the outbraking was by
accident. That’s why, these days, you tend to have
a ‘return route’ on problematic chicanes to force an immediate - but easy and fair
- penalty for skipping part of the track. Return routes are a real way to stop stewards
having to get involved and interfere with the race. Miss the chicane? Take this longer
route and we’ll say no more. But this wasn’t quite one of those chicanes.
It has grass on the inside and barriers close around the outside - very much like a street
circuit in this regard. It’s also downhill. You turn in kind of
blind and swish downhill right/left avoiding the barrier on the outside, all at the pretty
high speed of 140 off km/h. So, Vettel, struggling on tyres he hadn’t
quite got working optimally and in the disrupted air of the cars ahead, lost the back end on
turn in. Let’s be clear: it’s entirely up to Vettel
to keep his car under control. If he loses it, that’s on him. To defend the lead, you
need to be mistake free or risk losing position. I won’t be disputing that.
Now, upon losing the back end - getting oversteer on entry - Vettel corrects the slide by steering
left (against the direction of the corner), bringing the front into line to prevent a
spin. But, of course, in doing that he uses the
car’s momentum to catch the slide, sending him wide and across the grass.
He’s still not got it under control at this point.
He’s obviously keeping the momentum going but losing speed. He’s on the grass so he
doesn’t have the grip underfoot and tries to hold the car steady.
He cuts - actually not that much of the corner - and the car still isn’t behaving once
he’s back on tarmac as the back end kicks out again as he tries to get back on the throttle.
You can see Vettel counter-steering again, wrestling it all back under control.
By the time he’s got the car beneath him, he’s moved across the entire track, is at
significantly reduced speed and Hamilton has to brake to avoid driving straight into him.
The track is walled in so Hamilton can’t dodge right to avoid the slow Ferrari.
He also can’t go left as (a) in keeping momentum through the corner, the car is forced
into a wider line. He’d have to brake anyway to duck in around the left. And (b) Vettel
is coming, vaguely out of control, from the left so it’s reasonable to hold the right
side and try and squeeze through. But before we look at that, let me quickly
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Thanks Skillshare. Now on with the video! So, in my opinion, the actual infringement
cited - that Vettel rejoined the track in an unsafe manner is… tenuous.
It would have been tricky for Vettel to do much else. Braking on the grass wasn’t a
good idea as grip is unpredictable and he could induce a spin or be unable to stop the
car once it reaches the tarmac. He is going over 100 km/h, remember.
He could brake once he got onto the track but he is still wrestling the car at this
point and knows he has Hamilton right behind him so doesn’t want to suddenly become a
dangerously slow object right in front of a speeding Mercedes.
Also, remember this all happens in about two seconds. His instinct is to hang on as best
he can, fight the car, try and keep momentum and then take stock. There’s only so many
decisions you can make when fighting the car at high speed.
It’s all instinct, not the result of a long debate after repeated viewings of slow mo
replays from four different angles. Don’t forget that.
So, on this ‘charge’ I don’t think there’s much esle Vettel could be expected to do between
here and here. He was fighting the car while trying not to screw himself too badly.
So I don’t think he rejoined the track in a dangerous manner in the same way I don’t
think him completely spinning across the track would be rejoining the track in a dangerous
manner. Only so much was in his control. A lot was just the laws of physics.
I think the real question (which wasn’t addressed by the stewards’ report) was ‘did
Vettel gain an unfair advantage?’ Now there’s a sort of grey area here and
we’ve definitely seen inconsistency from the stewards on this in the past but there
are many situations where you muck up the entry to a chicane, skirt across it, emerge
on the otherside and hang onto your position. The argument here is - if the track limit
was defined by a wall, you’d just have crashed the car had you made that error.
If and buts, right? But often it’s safer or better for the track to not have a wall
but that’s never an invitation to skip the corner entirely.
If the driver behind manages to make the turn then there’s a good argument that the position
is theirs as the leading car defended by leaving the track limits.
At this point the leading car can willfully give the place over to the other car, holding
their hands up to admit they lost the position by default.
Doing this avoids investigation at all - which is preferential - but more often than not
drivers will hold station and argue it out through the supreme court of team radio. That’s
their prerogative. So - did Vettel gain an unfair advantage and
as such should he have either volunteered the lead over to Hamilton or taken a penalty.
That’s a trickier question. Clearly Vettel made an error.
If there was a wall on the immediate outside of turn 3 or if turn 3 didn’t flick back
into a chicane then Vettel would have absolutely lost the position, no question. He was saved
by geography no question. On the other hand, you can’t always argue
from the perspective of what would have happened at a different corner as the drivers and stewards
need to make reasonable judgement calls based on what the track is actually like.
That’s why stewards can have slightly different rules on whether cars are penalised for running
wide on different corners, depending on whether or not that is deemed advantageous.
That’s also why behaviour at the the Nouvelle chicane in Monaco is different to that at
turns 3 and 4 in Canada. Nouvelle chicane is flat, tarmacked and fairly open. Turns
3 and 4 are downhill, grassy and boxed in. So… on balance I could easily yield to the
argument that Vettel gained an advantage and deserves a penalty for that.
It was his error and Hamilton would have passed him were he able to ghost through him. Vettel
did end up blocking Hamilton to hold position. If that was the actual reason the stewards
gave then I’d say harsh but… OK, fair enough, yeah.
It’s a shame really as we do want this kind of aggressive racing and defending and do
not want to see a race neutered by a penalty hanging over the leader. It’s a shame.
But five seconds is the minimum actual race penalty available and at least we all knew
as the chequered flag fell who had won and didn’t have to wait for a note pinned to
the stewards’ door two hours later. Small mercies, I guess.
Ultimately, there’s arguments either way and I think the stewards used the wrong argument
and need to be more consistent from race to race.
In the end, it’s a shame that the on track battle had the wind knocked out of its sails
after the first real close Mercedes/Ferrari head to head of the year.