Made worse by the fact that the Saftey car line is so far down the straight, making it very difficult to calculate.
I think if it continues questions may start to be asked. If it continues it may start to paint a certain picture? Interesting request from Lewis for Bottas to slow down Seb?
Not surprised know Kimi and Bottas are both rear gunners for their respective teams. Not a bad thing but a bit disprespectful to Valtteri, who was fighting his own race not thinking about Lewis's title hopes.
From the mouth of the Toto: The Ferrari driver claimed Hamilton caused the initial collision by hitting the brakes on the exit of Turn 15, but after examining data from both cars, the stewards did not find anything unusual. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff later said that data presented to the stewards proves Hamilton did not hit the brakes on the exit. "I guess the only explanation I have [for Vettel's reaction], and I am not going to protect Sebastian here, the only explanation I have is that Sebastian thought Lewis was braking testing him, which he wasn't -- we have seen in the data and the safety car being 150m ahead, so that was a wrong judgement. "I can't imagine he did it on purpose in shunting into him, so I would like to speak to him personally and hear from him personally, to hear what he says about the incident rather than making a judgment without properly hearing or reading a statement." During a Safety Car restart, the rules say the lead driver "may dictate the pace" of the pack but that all drivers "must proceed at a pace which involves no erratic acceleration or braking nor any other manoeuvre which is likely to endanger other drivers or impede the restart". Wolff believes there was no question that Hamilton did anything outside the rules. "First of all, the leading driver can manage the pace. When he went into the turn the Safety Car was barely 150 metres in front of him and you could see from the start before that he almost caught the Safety Car over the Safety Car line. So there was never a question that at that stage he would accelerate -- no way. "Looking at the data, there was no brake involved, he went through the corner and went off the throttle and Sebastian went into him. So, nothing wrong on Lewis' side, it's just unfortunate." http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id...ws-lewis-hamilton-brake-test-sebastian-vettel
My apology. I mis-read Bando's specific reference to distance behind the Safety Car – which explains your response. Apologies.
I think a lot has been mentioned or discussed around Ferrari's preferential treatment that it's worth noting that maybe Bottas is driving to a certain brief. Like I said, it may (or may not) become more noticeable as the season progresses. He seems a little more aggressive around red cars and his starts have not been as attacking into turn one on Lewis as Nico was last year.
BLS's post (above) fully explains my own understanding of the incident. Vettel at fault throughout. But the most important question – which must be EMPHASIZED enormously – is the manner in which Vettel reacted to his own frustrations, no matter how they arose. ABSOLUTELY NEVER should a driver deliberately make inputs likely to deliberately endanger himself or another driver. What is categorically clear is that after running into the back of Hamilton, Vettel then chose to drive up alongside Hamilton. And then made a fully conscious (deliberate) input on his steering in the direction of Hamilton giving the latter no warning whatsoever and thus no way to avoid Vettel's (obviously intentional) effort to cause a collision. Utterly inexcusable. Totally reprehensible.
If he had taken one or both of them out of the race then the poo really would have hit the ventilation system.
FIA have felt the need to confirm. FIA analysis showed Hamilton did not brake-test Vettel https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-hamilton-vettel-baku-brake-testing-923425/ This line made me chuckle, come on Seb, we're not that naive! "I drove alongside, then we had a little contact but I drove alongside mostly to raise my hand. I didn't give him a finger or anything, I just wanted to tell because I can't literally talk to him that that was not right."
I guess this really does mark the start of one of the most intense title battles ever. The fake smiley smiley huggy kissy days are over.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I don't think the stewards viewed it like that. I think they made the assumption, right or wrong, that it was more accidental as a result of him pissing around with his hands off the wheel. If they did view at as intended premeditated act then you would assume he would have been disqualified? Reminds me of the Nico/Lewis incident, if it was intended contact the punishment wasn't a time penalty. Hence why I agree with your early post on collusion on the penalty, one which until Lewis's unscheduled pit stop was being investigated post race. Why.....?
I don't think there is any question as to whether it was intentional or not. That was a clear case of red mist. Not sure why it wasn't punished as that, but that's F1 for ya. Very fortunate for Vettel.
I find it hard to believe anyone could think it was unintentional though. When this is reviewed I would be surprised and disappointed if he did not receive an additional sanction.
