F1 Fanatic

@infy toro rosso was never faster than Vettel :D
About the third drivers – you just put 6 red bulls and 3 mclarens on grid. No amount of luck would put Alonso on podium again.
And in the unlikely scenario of Vettel being punished, Vergne would also be punished for hitting Glock to keep the championship result intact.

I watched it frame by frame several time and i’m pretty sure that there is a green flag but the resolution of the video is too low

http://www.abload.de/img/clipboard023lu9a.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/clipboard01hiuf6.jpg

Taken from the comments on the video (don’t shoot the messenger)

At 11:51, the marshall post at the pitlane exit shows a marshall with a green flag in his hand. Controversy over. Onto 2013.

@Bob

Don’t you mean 3? His teammate, and the two Toro Rossos.

Nope… totally meant to say 5. You figure out the other 2… I´ll give you a hint… engine supplier… ;D

@catracho504 – To the best of my memory, the team you have in mind haven’t explicitly moved over for Red Bull before. And if you want to consider the influence of engine suppliers, then one could argue that Ferrari have 4 cars on track as well.

@nesh – Having more cars on track naturally allows a team to subtly affect the outcome of a race. Those “5 seconds” lost while lapping a slow car may seem insignificant, but could result in gaps between drivers (one from a competing team, the other from the affiliated team) shrinking, precipitating a change of position, with potential championship-altering consequences.

In this case, having the Toro Rosso move out of the way enabled Vettel to avoid losing time, expending effort and risking damage by being bottled-up behind and conventionally overtaking the slower car. In other cases, having a Toro Rosso car briefly hold up frontrunners while being lapped, then subsequently waving the RBRs by, makes for a significant advantage in on-track battles.

So… I have an interesting take on this even assuming he *did* overtake under yellows…

An incident is any one of the following according to the sporting regulations:

a) Necessitated the suspension of a race under Article 41.
b) Constituted a breach of these Sporting Regulations or the Code.
c) Caused a false start by one or more cars.
d) Caused a collision.
e) Forced a driver off the track.
f) Illegitimately prevented a legitimate overtaking manoeuvre by a driver.
g) Illegitimately impeded another driver during overtaking.

Note, no mention of overtaking under yellow flags. The only mention of yellow flags in the sporting regulations are for two circumstances – 1) when a car has stalled on the grid 2) when the safety car is deployed.

For reference, here’s “the code”

http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/DD5A1BFC38A13D83C125751400375656/$FILE/CSI_apres_AGNov08ANG.pdf

Note, it too does not mention yellow flags…

It would appear that the FIA forgot to include rules banning overtaking under yellows!

Since I couldn’t find any good enough videos about this whole incident with Vettel and Vergne, I decided to follow the lap through the F1 Timing app for iPhone.

You can see that Seb and Vergne are on the edge of the end of the yellow sector.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me5r3xnfpz1qbgg8c.png

So Seb can claim he was going to overtake after the yellow sector, but Vergne slowed down and if he slowed down as well he would cause a collision.

I couldn’t get it on pic, because it happens very quickly, but after that you can see the VER dot on top of the VET dot in that purple bit and then this:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me5rka8mCr1qbgg8c.png

So that could have been an illegal pass. However, if you continue to watch the app you can see this:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me5s2rzKCI1qbgg8c.png

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me5s5mA3y41qbgg8c.png

So it looks like Seb gave the position back to Vergne and then a bit further down took it again. So, even if it was illegal, he gave the position back. I don’t see why FIA would still punish him after that.

But even if it was yellow there was no punishment cause toro rosso let him through.