Sebastian Vettel lashes out at F1 penalty system

Sebastian Vettel drove his heart out in Austria, starting from P6 and managing a podium finish thanks to some help from the cars ahead of him.

While Vettel did get lucky with those DNFs in front of him, he could have actually gone onto win the race, if not for the 3place grid penalty that he received for a non-intentional offence.

Vettel had impeded Sainz during qualifying, apparently preventing him from getting a good qualifying lap on the table.

The German has hit out at the penalties dished out by the stewards as he feels that drivers are not allowed to race anymore.

Vettel went on a massive rant about how racing incidents aren’t allowed to happen anymore, as if you get into one, you’ll be slapped with a grid penalty sooner or later.

“I’m not a fan of these penalties,” he said.

“I think I’ve said as well in the past that it’s our own drivers’ fault, because we sit there on Friday afternoon [in the driver briefing], complaining about the decisions and the consistency.

“From my point of view, motorsport is not black and white, so naturally not every decision can be the same. I don’t see the necessity to decide every time. That’s what the sport has developed into. Every incident needs to be looked at. Racing incidents for some reason are not allowed to happen anymore. So we end up with a massive rulebook.

“I think we could have the header ‘we’re not allowed to race’, because that’s sometimes how it feels. In that situation in qualy, nobody was hurt. Carlos said it was no problem and he completely understood, he was very chilled, and I still ended up with a penalty. Obviously for me, it sucked on the day, it will probably suck for somebody else at a point in the season, but I just think that all these things are unnecessary.

“Sometimes it’s not that you lose your mind or you do something crazy because you intend to, but you’re trying to push the limits, and you do a mistake. I think it’s happening everywhere else. I think there’s a trend everywhere else where things are being investigated, which I really don’t like the word.” he added

The whole Sainz fiasco was due to Ferrari not informing Vettel about Sainz coming in from behind. And with the Vowles-Hamilton radio exchange making the news for all the wrong reasons, Vettel was quizzed about his relationship with the team despite that bout of ignorance in Austria.

“Obviously, there was an error that happened to us as a team. I don’t like to put the blame somewhere else. I’ve explained many times the penalty. Usually in that moment, we know what to do. I’m usually told. In that case I wasn’t told. These things happen.

“We have a very good system in place, we’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s my view. These kinds of things will happen to us, to other people. It’s just part of our sport. If you share the track with others, then at some point, maybe you’re in each other’s way.” Vettel concluded.