Vettel To The Metal. Vettel/Webber/Hamilton incident.

[Knowlesy]

Well that video removes any blame for Hamilton then. Thanks.

[Super Hans]

Originally Posted by Chiefy

At the end of the day I'd call it a racing incident, and matters arising should perhaps be dealt with in-house (ie in the Red Bull house).

Therein lies the problem. "Racing incidents" shouldn't be occuring under yellow flag / safety car conditions. If drivers are showing so little regard for the yellow flag that they are having collisions, then something needs to be done. This is an issue for the sport as a whole, and shouldn't be kept in-house.

[Super Hans]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Well that video removes any blame for Hamilton then. Thanks.

"Surprisingly", the clip reveals that Seb Vettel made a silly error and drove into the back of Mark Webber. A mistake for which he has been punished. Matter closed. Time to remove those tin-foil hats.

[Knowlesy]

Yes, I was surprised that it was Vettel that made the mistake too, having seen him sans front wing and a cock-eyed wheel.

Still, he is German and I had intially wanted to blame a Limey for no reason.

[Ralf's Girl]

Originally Posted by jab

A revealing video

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8hWIfBkVQUk

So basically, from that we can see that Vettel wasn't watching the guy in front and hit the back of him. Didn't some of us say that several pages ago...?

[Adam43]

Who'd have thought.

[greenracer]

I was under the impression that the lead car was supposed to follow the safety car not pull up along side it,obviously Hamilton was travelling too fast and had run wide to avoid the safety car . Webber has to brake to avoid a penalty for passing under yellow ,take the blinkers off and forget Hamilton is British for a minute and look constructively.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by greenracer

,take the blinkers off and forget Hamilton is British for a minute and look constructively.

If that is your reasoning to disregard someone else's opinion you're on the wrong forum. Just discuss the situation, like you seem to crave to.

Hamilton did run wide because the SC wasn't going as quickly as expected. Way, good idea. The alternative was to suddenly slam the brakes on, which ismore dangerous if you have cars behind you. Someone might have hit him, wouldn't necessarily have been his fault, but he minimised that danger. Bloody good idea really!

But obviously my opinion is worthless.

All he did was provide room for Webber, although Vettel decided to go there too. When faced with a slower car ahead Hamilton and Webber kept away. Vettel didn't. Silly boy.

[rocketracer]

thanks Jab! that's certainly pretty clear cut evidence that lewis was not really a direct contributor to that accident.

in retrospect i had presumed that because of the way we had seen lewis driving previously behind the safety car, that he had contributed to the accident, but i dont see how lewis was doing much wrong there.

still, the point remains that any accident under a safety car is by definition against the point of having it out there in the first place. however, i dont really see how any regulation could have prevented that accident other than mandating regulated distances between cars (such as 4 car lengths or some such) with pit speed limiter on, until the safety car lights go out, and no stop start braking until that last lap...

anyway, apologies for wrongly implying that lewis contributed to that accident but now, that vettel bloke, well.............

[mac]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Well that video removes any blame for Hamilton then. Thanks.

Don't know that it is that clear cut. Look how close Alonso is to the safety car when he goes through the right-hander - and look how far behind it he is when Vettel makes contact with Webber.

Make no bones about it, it is totally and utterly Vettel's fault.

But I still think Hamilton played a small part - you can understand why Vettel thought he had pulled over with a problem as that is exactly what it looks like he was doing.

[Wrex]

Ahh, this is sadly why I don't frequent as much as I used to.

Time for a few here (talking to the Aussies and the Brits here) to take the bias test. Put simply, if Webber were the lead car, and Hamilton the one crashed into, would you HONESTLY still have the same opinion (or be as convinced as you are now)?

I am pretty convinced looking at some of the posts above if the drivers were reversed, so would their opinions.

As you were

[johnh875]

Very interesting. Presumably the Safety Car's brake lights work - we don't see any application of the brake although the car does appear to slow slightly through the Dunlop corner as you would expect. Hamilton maintains a higher speed then brakes hard in the middle of the left-right sequence, and drifts towards the right-hand side of the track at very low speed, whilst the Safety Car has accelerated away - Hamilton is very soon more than the required 5 car lengths behind the Safety Car. This causes Webber to have to brake very hard to avoid passing Hamilton, and Vettel collides with him. Note that the accident occurs alongside Hamilton, and the wreckage of Webber's car is knocked well past him, so slow is his speed before he sets off again.

It would be interesting to see a wider shot of how far behind the Safety Car Hamilton is at this point, and even more interesting to hear his explanation of his actions at this point. It is clear that Hamilton has breached regulation 40.10 regarding staying within 5 car lengths of the Safety Car, and given this caused an accident (or should I say there is a direct causal link ie the accident would not have occurred had it not been for this action) that affected the race results I don't see why he should not be penalised, and he can consider himself very lucky not to have been.

[Dixie Flatline]

As has already been said a number of times already, the stewards did not see fit to even investigate Hamilton's actions and they certainly have not punished him. Your opinion is that Hamilton breached the regulations. The stewards' opinion is that he did not.

[johnh875]

You posted a link earlier which says they did investigate Hamilton's actions! I realise they did not penalise him - it is my opinion that he was lucky. For what it is worth, I think Kubica was slightly unlucky to be penalised, it could have easily been ruled a racing incident. Either driver could have avoided the accident and it was only minor contact. Something to consider with these decisions is also the message they send. Penalising Kubica is going to make drivers more wary of trying an overtaking move in the future, whereas not penalising Hamilton is effectively condoning his behaviour behind the safety car which clearly breached the regulations, let alone being dangerous. Why is it a problem if I see things differently to the stewards?

[Notso Swift]

Dixie, That is a direct contradiction of your last post on this topic #113

The facts of this matter are simple Vettle hit Webber.
The causes, well it is the behaviour of the entire GP field and the way they act behind the safety car, this is something that has been creeping in for the last 2-3 years and if anyone Alonso probably started it, Hamilton has just copied what he sees as acceptable behaviour, (Just like he does with his starts, it was OK for TGF, so it is OK for me) These guys (the McBrats) are two of the worse with their gaming.
I will bet my left one that the Drivers briefing in China will have particular mention of Safety car Rules as well as etiquette.

[OZ_HCR32]

Well, that vid exonerates Hamilton. Sure he was ducking and weaving and all sorts behind the safety car but i cant see how you can say he contributed to the accident. Hell Webber did nothing wrong either.

I take back what i said in an earlier post about Vettel...im betting a girl had her tits out and he was gawking at her rather then the car in front. Thats a pretty bad mistake he made.

[Dixie Flatline]

Like I said when I posted the link to the article in the race thread, my Spanish is at the level of a two year old. I didn't pick up in Marca's article where the journalist said that Hamilton was being investigated for any contribution to the collision between Vettel and Webber. Perhaps somebody with a solid grasp of Spanish would like to provide a snapshot of the article?

Furthermore, I haven't yet seen any other corroboration of the stewards' deliberations except an article on F1Live - which quotes the original Marca report!

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Wrex

Time for a few here (talking to the Aussies and the Brits here) to take the bias test. Put simply, if Webber were the lead car, and Hamilton the one crashed into, would you HONESTLY still have the same opinion (or be as convinced as you are now)?

Yeah, it'd still be Vettel's fault!

Keep meaning to dig your reverse the names thread back up...

[Dixie Flatline]

Having said what I said previously, I've just read the report of Hamilton's comment about Webber needing to be further behind and my feeling is that his comments are fairly outrageous.

[Ralf's Girl]

Originally Posted by AdamAshmore

Yeah, it'd still be Vettel's fault!

Agreed - I don't like Hamilton enough to be desperately trying to blame somebody for taking him out when it clearly wasn't their fault...

[ensign14]

Originally Posted by Dixie Flatline

Having said what I said previously, I've just read the report of Hamilton's comment about Webber needing to be further behind and my feeling is that his comments are fairly outrageous.

You mean the comments from someone who had just won a treacherous race and was deeply concerned about his World Championship lead, having already had one collision in the race?

Indeed, look what Kovalainen said:

I kept a little distance just to make sure that nothing happened.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Dixie Flatline

fairly outrageous.

but not head poppingly outrageous?

[maximus]

The only thing outrageous are the comments in the Youtube link. Some people need to grow up.

[Nicholosophy]

It seems to me that in the last five to ten years or so, that harder acceleration and deceleration are used during these warm up procedures. Perhaps this is something that needs to be looked at in the future. Warming up the tyres in such a manner seems unsafe to me, but then again going around at full pace on cold tyres would be similarly dangerous. But drivers were able to manage cold tyres in the past (it's something we don't talk about too much anymore now that I think of it).

[1200Datto27]

Originally Posted by maximus

The only thing outrageous are the comments in the Youtube link. Some people need to grow up.

It's hard to grow up when you are only ten...

I've had some outrageous comments made regarding video's that I have posted on youtube, from people who where not even at the event, critising what was being shown (private dirt motorkhana/muck about on my farm) as not being done to MSA/CAMS/ insert ASN here rules, or that we where destroying property and should have been charged for damaging the ground (that was plowed the next day), so I now just ignore the comments.

Originally Posted by NickoGP

It seems to me that in the last five to ten years or so, that harder acceleration and deceleration are used during these warm up procedures. Perhaps this is something that needs to be looked at in the future. Warming up the tyres in such a manner seems unsafe to me, but then again going around at full pace on cold tyres would be similarly dangerous. But drivers were able to manage cold tyres in the past (it's something we don't talk about too much anymore now that I think of it).

I wonder if it's due to having the grooved tyres/harder compounds, as well as much more efficient brake cooling that has lead to drivers needing to be more aggressive to gain and keep tempretures in the tyres?