Sebastian Vettel was dealt with a 3 place grid penalty in Austria for impeding Carlos Sainz’s run during qualification at the Red Bull ring.
Vettel admitted that he wasn’t aware about Sainz coming in from behind and that his actions were not at all ‘intentional’.
FIA still decided to go ahead with the penalty because of Ferrari and Vettel’s ignorance on track.
After the Austrian GP, Vettel conceded that because the rule book was so big and consisted of so may complicated rules, these driver penalties have shot up during the last few years.
He also took a dig at the drivers for the existence of that ‘big fat book’, as according to him it is the whining and complaining of the drivers that has led to these stringent rules.
“I wasn’t told, I tried to look out for him, I don’t want to drag on about it, but… The rule book’s now so fricking big,” Vettel said.
“I think it’s a result of all the drivers, all of us, I think we’ve more or less all been there, whinging and complaining, ‘oh he’s done this, he’s done that’.
“In the end you should let us sort it out on track, that’s my belief.” he added.
Charlie Whiting later explained how penalty decision take place, wherein the stewards look into similar incidents from the past and the penalties awarded. They then take a decision on the extent of the offense and keep the penalties in line with what has been awarded in the past.
“I think it was deserved. Completely consistent with other decisions” Whiting said, as quoted by Motorsport.com.
“The impact was low, so if you wanted to take that path of trying to assess the implications of the actual incident then you could say, in effect, ‘no harm, no foul’.
“But that’s not something we are thinking about [at the moment]. We are thinking about talking about it, but it’s not something we do presently.” he concluded.
