Could Vettel be stripped of his 3rd world championship?

[Steve_PPP]

News breaking at the moment is that Ferrari are going to protest to the FIA with video evidence that Vettel overtook Vergne in Brazil under yellow flag conditions. Normal penalty for this is a drive-through, but if its missed, the stewards can apply a 20 second time penalty to the race result. Which would put Vettel 8th, losing the title to Alonso by 1 point.

Sky Sports picked up on another suspected illegal overtake by Vettel - although they were wrong by the looks of it. This chap on Youtube has found proof of another illegal pass shown from the interactive Sky 'Race Control' camera on board the Red Bull (which didn't go out on the normal world feed).



Yes, its 12 mins long. The guy likes the sound of his own voice. But if you want to see the illegal pass, skip to the last 3 mins. Could the FIA really award the title to Alonso now???

[stiggy]

Interesting clip, read a few comments on the vid but everyone has and is entitled to their opinion, it doesn't bother me either way but does look like an illegal pass watching that. I'm sure the professionals will be taking a close look at it.

Gutting for vettel if they overturn the championship & would certainly stick the 2012 season in the history books.

[Steve_PPP]

Bah, youtube pulled the footage. A short clip is here

Doubt it will come to anything but theres a lot of speculation about it going on... some people saying Vergne backed off, so Vettel had to go past. Yet, Vettel used KERS to assist the move, suggesting he needed the extra pace to achieve the overtake.

Also read rumours online that Red Bull knew they'd broken the rules, and asked Vergne to finish at least 20 seconds behind Vettel in case the race result was altered by the stewards (Vettel would *just* keep the championship by dropping to 7th). Looks like Vettel coasted the last run over the line - Vergne ended up 19.2 seconds behind at the flag. Sneaky stuff going on???

Either the FIA make a statement saying the result stands, or I can see this one dragging out, appeal process etc etc.

[XRS]

Footage on the BBC seems to indicate there was a Marshall waving a green flag just before he overtook. FIA are apparently not going to take any action.

[Scottie :)]

BBC sport has just released the FIA are taking no action aginst Vettel

[Steve_PPP]

Ah well, no surprise really is it.

It would have been very harsh on Vettel if they had penalised him, but i'd love to know if the rumours about Red Bull requesting that Vergne finished 20 seconds behind were true

Been a while since there's been a real controversial end to the championship, not like the days of Senna & Prost driving each other off the track deliberately, or even Schumi's attempts with Hill/Villeneuve

[rossmarts]

I think they would do anything to avoid the championship being retrospectively decided in this manner. The powers that be would see it as extremely harmful to the general perception of F1, potentially more harmful than not applying the penalty.

It seems odd that the pass is being allowed when the lights were flashing yellow and the dash indicators were also lit up yellow. Flags currently overrule both the lights inside and outside the car (on the basis that the light system could fail) and so the waved green flag at the pit exit will be seen as reason to let the pass stand.

Whatever happens people will pick fault in it. Vettel wins - some will say the FIA ignored the rules. Alonso wins - some will say as so often in the past, that the FIA is always biased towards Ferrari.

[asperformance]

has happened to the WRC in the past (mid 80's) when Alen was declared champion then a rally result was overturned about a week later giving Kankunen the crown............

[Steve_PPP]

Originally Posted by asperformance

has happened to the WRC in the past (mid 80's) when Alen was declared champion then a rally result was overturned about a week later giving Kankunen the crown............

Yeah, 1986. Really wish the WRC still had the same following and media coverage it had then too!