Nine cars under investigation after race

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Jenson Button and eight other drivers are under investigation following the European Grand Prix.

Button along with Nico Hulkenberg, Rubens Barrichello, Robert Kubica, Vitaly Petrov, Adrian Sutil, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Sebastien Buemi and Pedro de la Rosa may be handed penalties because of their safety car in-lap time.

The safety car was deployed after Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen collided on lap 14.

Button finished third in the original classification, Barrichello fourth, Kubica fifth, Sutil sixth, Buemi eighth, de la Rosa tenth, Petrov 11th, Liuzzi 13th and Hulkenberg did not finish.

Update: Ten drivers get penalties, Alonso and Rosberg gain extra points

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    30 comments on “Nine cars under investigation after race”

    1. The Safety Car period was a bit weird… Why did it take so long for the Safety Car to deploy? Did it break down?

    2. why am I having flashbacks to an old school red car love in… prob nothing in it but I was sat there thinking what’s next after Lewis’s stop go.

      1. The Ferrari’s got hurt a lot more by what happened than anyone else. So I can’t see what you mean, unless it’s sarcasm.

    3. It seems some drivers didn´t make a correct stop (or whatever) at the SC. Most of them (if not all of them), gained positions to the drivers who respected the rules (Ferrari and others).
      The most benefited has been Hamilton… once again!!

      1. Typical Mcliar!

    4. Prisoner Monkeys
      27th June 2010, 15:04

      I sense the hand of Ferrari in this. They were upset when Hamilton didn’t lose anything from his penalty, and I suspect that they’ve gone looking for people who have done something wrong in an attempt to bolster Alonso and Massa’s standings. Crucially, all of the drivers that have been flagged for speeding were ahead of Alonso and/or Massa. That can’t be a coincidence. I’d be very interested to see some of the figures from other cars that pitted at the same time, but were placed behind the Ferraris.

      1. Coincidence!! All of these cars broke rules, how about that for a ‘coincidence’.

        As a matter-of-fact, at Australia, Massa lost place to Kubica because of a certain ’25 meter’ window when a car cannot be released from a pit box.

        Ferrari have been very clean this year and haven’t put a foot wrong, and look what they got in return!!

        1. Prisoner Monkeys
          27th June 2010, 15:17

          Hey, I’m all for penalising people who deserve it. But I have to wonder if Ferrari aren’t trying to make a grab for position and hiding behind the rulebook. If they are indeed the ones who went to Charlie Whiting, I’d be very interested to see what they would have done if Alonso was higher up. I wouldn’t put it past them, given the way Ferrari have been campaigning against the newcomers and trying to reassert their control over the sport.

          And before you start defending Ferrari, take a look at their “media function” at Fiorano, when Valencia-spec parts made their way onto the car for the session. It makes you wonder whether they weren’t condusing an in-season test and dressing it up as a PR event to get away with it.

          1. Agree with Pm but probably feel differently about it. Of course it was a test last week or whenever it was. It’s a loophole in the rules. Typical Formula 1 and for some, typical Ferrari.

            I don’t really care if Ferrari had a hand in this or not. If they didn’t do anything wrong they have nothing to worry about. They probably have been pushing for some form of action I agree.

        2. Well, if it the Ferraris and Mclarens were other way around in this race, and Alonso had flouted the rules and Hamilton and Button got handicapped, don’t you think Mclaren would have gone to Charlie Whiting? It is what teams do when they think someone else has done wrong.

          Regarding the “media function”, I agree that it wasn’t within the spirit of the rules, but Ferrari did not break any rule. Mclaren and the 7 other drivers *clearly* broke a rule.

          1. “Mclaren and the 7 other drivers *clearly* broke a rule.”

            Realy? Nothing has been anounced yet, and unless you have access to data none of us have seen, I don’t think there is anything clear about it.

        3. ’25 meter’ is a indication, not a rule

    5. How could the race Control take so long to decide on the Hamilton penalty!!! Effectively meant that overtaking the safety car (breaking the rules) was the right thing to do, thanks to Kobayashi holding everyone up!!

      And that is not the only fault of the stewards here.

      Even if Button is issued a 25-second penalty, he still comes out ahead of Alonso.

      I think the penalties system must be changed from “times added” to “positions lost”. This way, Button onwards, everyone can get an appropriate 7-8 place penalty, putting them in their rightful positions.

      Such a system would have even worked in the Alonso-Schumi incident at Monaco. Schumi would have got just a 1-place penalty!!

      1. Prisoner Monkeys
        27th June 2010, 15:28

        The stewards have the right to issue grid penalties for the next race, which is at Silverstone. This, I think would be most appropriate, assuming penalties are to be issued at all. The stewards will be hesitant to issue a single race-changing penalty given the fallout from Monaco, much less nine of them in a row, and while Button is safe, what about the others? Kubica, Barrichello, Sutil and Buemi could all easily be relegated to a position behind Alonso.

        I’m not questioning the need for penalties here – I’m examining the motives for calling them out in the first place, if Ferrari indeed cited them. It may have taken twenty minutes for the stewards to make up their minds about Hamilton (after all, they’d have to consider things from Hamilton’s point of view, and if he was completely unaware that he was doing the wrong thing – which is likely given how close it was – then he hardly deserves it), then consider the time difference between that first round of stops and all the cars being flagged for violations. It’s certainly more than twenty minutes; it’s probably more than thirty.

        1. I agree with you that grid penalties for next race would be better than changing a race order of an already finished race.

          But seriously, how much slower could Race Control get? Formula One is a fast sport. The fastest sport infact. How could its stewarding be so slow!!

          Safety car incident happened on lap 9. During the actualy safety car period, when all cars are slower than the safety car, do the stewards sit and do NOTHING?!?! They should be investigating all these incidents during the safety car period and have a list of penalties ready as soon as the safety car comes in. Keep the safety car longer in case, you need more time to deliberate the penalties. Surely, that is the sane thing to do, rather than giving a penalty after the driver-in-question has already run 10-15 laps at full race speed and nullified his penalty.

          PS: I quite like Hamilton and his driving style. The above is an anti-stewards post, not an anti-Hamilton one.

      2. Hahaha. 7-8 place penalty! I’m literally laughing out loud right now. Just 7 or 8 places, you know, so that everyone lands behind Alonso. I’m in tears ;)

    6. Sorry I would have to disagree with Prisoner Monkeys.

      Its quite clear Ferrari told Alonso not to worry about that situation and to just get on with the race..

      I believe Ferrari have every right to raise the point to race directors if other teams gained unfair advantage, we all know they would do the same if the roles were reversed.

    7. The FIA really needs to iron out these safety car issues and so do the drivers because its crap and im tired of it

      Maybe they need to run some safety car drills, like a fire drill at an elementary school or a drill during football practice.

      I propose they do this between now and silverstone

      1. So many people say things need to be fixed. no one says how… sigh…

        Personally I think it’s fine the way it is.

    8. Well, I must admit I understand Alonsos frustration:
      “It must have been very hard to know,” said Alonso of the times it took the stewards to penalise Hamilton. “They must have taken a lot of laps to see the replay of how he overtook the medical car.”

    9. Hmmm… I have never seen so much of confusions during saftey cars during last 20 years that I have been watching.

      Is it that the teams are pushing the rules to the extreme ?

      Or

      Do the Drivers, Team marshals and FIA need to sit together and have a Safety Car Workshop Session so that everybody is clear about the rules.

      These and the Monace incidents are really silly things which should not happen at the first place. Now here we are instead of watching interesting races we are left with discussing Saftey Car Rules.

      And A Gooal for England. !!!

    10. The full result with times if the investigated cars got 20sec penalties:
      1. Vettel
      2. Hamilton +5.0
      3. Button +27.6
      4. Kobayashi +30.9
      5. Alonso +32.8
      6. Barrichello +40.6
      7. Kubica +42.1
      8. Rosberg +44.3
      9. Sutil +45.1
      10. Massa +46.6
      11. Alguesuari +48.2
      12. Schumacher +48.8
      13. Buemi +51.2
      14. de la Rosa +62.4
      15. Petrov +63.2
      16. Liuzzi +65.8
      …And the new teams as they finished.

    11. This is not about Ferrari it’s about driving too fast under safety car conditions. Penalties should be given for the race in which they occur. To see drivers down the grid at silverstone would be a poor move and rob fans of a proper race. Why ruin 2 races?

    12. its absolutely stupid the way they ran the safety car.

      they need to take a page out of the Indy Car book, no pit stops till you are all lined up behind the safety car otherwise this will happen every Safety car deployment.

      with big gaps in between cars of course they will catch up and if allowed they will dive into the pits to gain positions…

      it needs to be sorted or it will happen again.

      First the Safety Car should pick up the front leading car or wait until it can then they should all line up behind and then and only then they can pit..

    13. The Safety car simply came out too late in my opinion… and hence all the confusion

      but, still alonso could not overtake a buemi while sutil & kobayashi could… have ferrari gone wrong with alonso?

      also, a horrible call by Mercedes pit stop crew to call Schumi for a pit so late, he should have done what kobayashi did!!

    14. The best way to solve the situation: get rid of mandatory pitstops!

    15. Nine drivers get five second penalties, Glock has a 20-second penalty.

      1. Any further details? Does it affect the outcome of the race?

    16. Since when has a 5 or 20 second penalty been allowable? I thought it was only a 25 second post race penalty?

      1. Prisoner Monkeys
        28th June 2010, 3:07

        I suspect the stewards handed down five-second penalties to penalise the drivers without altering the outcome of the race too much.

        Also, it may be written in the rules that speeding back to pit lane (or whatever those nine drivers did) only gets a five-second penalty. We’ve never heard of it before, because when was the last time anyone got cited for speeding back to pit lane?

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