Rosberg halfway to a ban after Raikkonen collision penalty

2016 Malaysian Grand Prix

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Nico Rosberg is halfway towards a one-race ban after being given penalty points for his collision with Kimi Raikkonen during the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Rosberg was given two penalty points taking him up to a total of six. Drivers receive an automatic one-race ban if they reach twelve.

He was given a ten-second time penalty for the incident, which had no effect on his finishing position as he was over ten seconds ahead of Raikkonen at the flag.

Rosberg admitted his move had been “aggressive” but said he didn’t expect to get a penalty for it.

“I went for it and we touched and that’s it,” he said. “I can’t remember the details.”

“For sure it was an aggressive move and they judged it to be a bit too aggressive and that’s it. I didn’t think I was going to get a penalty at the time.”

Rosberg said he was “surprised” to get a penalty. “I had to give it a go at some point and I saw the opportunity, so I went for it.”

“You need to be creative and wherever a chance comes, take it. I thought it was an aggressive move but still okay, to be honest. That’s what we race for. But I accept the decision and luckily it didn’t have an influence on the result, as we had a better pace than Ferrari.”

2016 Malaysian Grand Prix

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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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    82 comments on “Rosberg halfway to a ban after Raikkonen collision penalty”

    1. A harsh penalty, Kimi did leave door open in that corner.

      1. that’s kinda irrelevant as, if Raikkonen wasn’t there, Rosberg would have ended up going wide on corner exit, possibly even off track.

        1. That’s assuming Rosberg with that move didn’t clip the back of Hamilton to take them both out.
          It’s just as well Raikkonen was there.

      2. +1, it’s an absolutely stupid decision. They banged wheels during racing, as far as anyone is concerned it was just a racing incident that didn’t even result in anything except for a spectacular overtake. The penalty points are just the bit the breaks the camels back really. Definitely too harsh, and completely unnecessary

        1. I agree it should not have been a penalty as you don’t defend the inside don’t be shocked when there is a car jumping in there, but that also goes for the first corner incident. I don’t think vettle did anything wrong, its not like he dive bombed into the side of a car. Roseberg left to much room and there was a car there.

          1. Agreed. Another example of a poor decision. Vettel caused a much more serious collision but, by comparison, was barely penalised. Oh that’s right; Seb drives a red car.

      3. It wasn’t an open door, because there wasn’t space for Rosberg to take the corner without sailing through the apex at a tangent to the racing line, to the far side of the track, with a car alongside. A collision was inevitable. It was the same as his moves at Austria and Germany, that he was also penalised for.

        1. Yet Rosbergs front wheels were past Kimi so therefore Kimi closed the gap when he should have at that point surrendered or gone wide or avoid contact.

          Sorry we have seen far worse from others and they were never penalized like this. Pure Racing incident.

          1. That’s irreverent as he came from behind and still ran into Raikkonen.

          2. They take account of the timing, as we heard in Spain, where Rosberg was technically guilty but they conceded he didn’t have time to react. Like Kimi this time.

    2. The stewards have been absolute rubbish this year. They all need to be sacked. A two year old could have done a better job. Seriously, it was a bold move but also a good one! And Webber and Coulthard agree!

      1. Spot on. We should be ever happy when someone pulls move like this instead of waiting for drs gimmick on every lap. Kimi clearly left a door open.

      2. so smashing another drivers front wing and side swiping them with the rear is now seen as a good overtake ? It was a joke of a move from Rosberg to add to his collection this year. He should get a race ban because he’s learnt nothing from his previous dangerous moves. It’s embarrassing for F1 that he’ll be the champion.

        1. Yep, racing should be a procession and all passes should be on DRS or on the pits, while complaining about how good the old times were.

        2. VES got the approval previously, so should be all good for others to copy.

      3. Even worse, the fact that such a preposterously harsh penalty came right after Lewis burned his engine sure felt like were trying to “compensate”. Which is not their job at all.

      4. Bang on!

      5. I respectfully disagree here: this is open wheel, not stock car. You are not supposed to bang wheels because it could be dangerous. If there’s a gap: go for it but make sure you don’t touch the other car. Rosberg could have make the move without touching, this would have been even more impressive.

        In the end, I think the penalty was fair @ultimateuzair.

    3. Also by same logic where is the penalty for Vettel having collided with Nico in 1st corner?

      1. VET is still being investigated IIRC

      2. Suppose it might come later. No point in investigating during the GP as Vettel was out of the race.

      3. It’s not the same logic, though. Since first corner incidents are looked at with a different view, given they’re all on cold tyres/brakes and heavy with fuel.

    4. Another penalty for Nico that had no affect on his finishing position.

      1. @ivan-vinitskyy Of course you’re bitter. I expected no less.

        1. My emotions aside, penalty was unfair. But if you’re going to give 1 out for an infraction, it should be one that actually hurts the driver.

          1. Well @ivan-vinitskyy, he did have to extend his lead on Kimi to stay where he was thanks to it (might have blown his engine??)

            1. @bosyber, he would have done it without engines modes I’m sure. Mercedes is fast enough.
              Besides do you not find it ironic that Ros used performance enhancing engines modes and got to the end but Ham did not and suffered catastrophic engine failure? Not to mention Ros had 2 contacts in the race.

            2. @ivan-vinitskyy, that’s not ironic, it’s just bad luck for HAM, luck for ROS after getting punted into turn one.

      2. What would a proper penalty would be in your opinion? A black flag?

        He should not have been penalised at all for this move. Yes they touched, but it was true entertainment. It seems that the stewards only want us to see processional races these days…

        1. The first sentence should be “What would a proper penalty be in your opinion?”
          Sorry for the typo.

          1. Proper response would be no penalty but if stewards think it was severe enough, and maybe it was as it could have taken Kimi out of the race if the sidepod got damaged then 10sec stop go or give the place back to Kimi.

            1. Well in my opinion since they felt he should be penalised, 10 seconds seems to be fair. The penalty was handed when the race was still going on. The gap to Raikonnen was very small at the time.

              If I remember correctly it is the same penalty that he got when he crashed with Hamilton in Austria so at least they are consistent.

    5. Rosberg is the WORST wheel to wheel racer in F1 behind those two Sauber pansies. How many times has he made contact with someone since 2014? Give him a pole and a getaway and he ll win but race side by side with him and you get contact.

      1. How would a Senna be judged by today’s ‘standards’?

      2. Agreed. He’s fantastically quick over 1 lap and when leading he’s increddibly consistant and managing his race, but man does he look average at best when in wheel to wheel battle (or in rain for that matter).

        1. Rosberg is no Hamilton, but seems better than Vettel when fighting for position.

          That was a bold move, a damn good one, totally different from Vettel’s disastrous attempt at the first corner.

          Verstappen did a few similar passes this year, including on Raikkonen, and was mostly applauded by this site’s readers.

          1. Rosberg barshed into Kimi’s sidepot, litterally shoving him out of the way. When did Verstappen do that and get auplause?! Rosberg was lucky it didn’t end more embarasingly with suspension damage or a retirement.

      3. Didn’t seem to have much of an issue going wheel to wheel when overtaking many other cars today.

        It’s funny how drivers like Rosberg & Vettel previously only get branded as ‘bad racers that cant overtake’ when there challenging Hamilton for wins/championships.
        Nico has been in F1 for 10 years mostly in mid-field cars where he’s had to race in close quarters & pull off many overtakes to gain positions & not once until he came up against the British favorite Hamilton was his race craft ever questioned.

    6. There was no need to do this do or die move in my opinion. Nico should start to consider DTM as it better fits his corner overtakes this year…

    7. A safety-driven penalty like speeding in the pitlane earned Ocon a 5s penalty, but a no-harm-caused contact gets Rosberg 10s? I mean, Raikkonen didn’t suffer a puncture, didn’t have his race end, and lost some bits of front wing.

      I recall Bianchi’s overtake in the 2014 Monaco GP to have been more aggressive – three neat bumps, and that was highly entertaining!

      1. +1. I also feel like they are misusing, by overusing. the 5 second time penalty. Pretty much every penalty is a 5 second time penalty, even when there is a safety element involved. As somebody pointed out above, the stewards have done a totally dire job this year.

    8. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      2nd October 2016, 11:01

      This penalty is really, really silly. I’m pleased it didn’t actually result in anything. Other than the penalty points unfortunately.

      It is a strange thing to compare it to, but think about the Kimi / Bottas Collision in Russia last year. Kimi got a 30 second penalty and 2 penalty points. He walloped Bottas very hard and knocked him out of the race as well as continuing to drive with a heavily damaged car. He got 2 penalty points for that. The same as what Rosberg got for what he did today?!. Yes, Kimi did get a 30 second penalty but even so, I thought what Kimi got was fair. However, A 10 second penalty for such a gentle touch that hardly changed anything resulted in the penalty given is just ridiculous. It shouldn’t have even been investigated IMO.

      Since it did, why didn’t incidents like Rosberg getting forced off the track by Hamilton in Canada get investigated? Rosberg had to take avoiding action and drive off the track and loose a load of places or allow Hamilton to collide with him. Do they only investigate things when drivers touch? I don’t get it.

      1. it’s simple, hamilton and verstappen can do what they want and the others can’t

      2. I agree completely, it doesn’t make sense. Especially the points thing. Everything that happens is 2 penalty points, no matter how minor or severe. Have they ever even handed out 1 point?

        1. @thegianthogweed @strontium Agree completly. Stewards should take in to consideration, there was no car damage, both drivers continued and moves like this are firmly what sells tickets and captivates audiences.

          Liberty Media should give stewards a call and explain what audiences expect from a sport.

          We are watching GP racing, not circuit driving with some highway passing afterall.

          1. +1 @jureo , if people wanted to watch highway passing they would go stand on a local motorway bridge. It’s completely free too

    9. I’m not sure about the penalty, but what about that driving? He had 15 or so laps to overtake a clearly slower car and flings it up the inside like a madman. Very lucky!

      1. He is fighting for a championship, pretty sure at that point he had no idea how far the cars infront of Kimi are.

        Best bet as racing driver is to overtake as early as possible as decisive as possible. There was a gap, he went for it.

        We criticize Rosberg for poor race craft, but that was awesome. If LH or MV would do such a move everyone would speak of skill.

        It was on the limit and wheel banging made it memorable.

        1. @john-h, @jureo: If LH or MV had made the same sort of move there’s a much better chance that they would have done it without touching. I suppose that there’s a certain amount of skill in bouncing off other cars without breaking your own, but I think there’s more skill in clean overtaking.

          1. @jimg LH maybe, Max would bang some wheels just to make an impact.

            I am just trying to point out bias.

            Then again Nico makes contact very often when overtaking cars with similar speed. I can think 3-4 times this year.

    10. If anything, Rosberg deserved the penalty for his collision with Seb. He gave up his position in an attempt to slipstream Lewis, but chopped right across as he reached the corner. There There was simply nowhere for Seb to go. I am surprised that wasn’t looked at a bit more.

      1. Disagree totally. The collision happened because Vettel was going too quickly into the first corner. His onboard shows that he was going to run extremely wide because of his entry speed. Sebastian even said that Rosberg didn’t do anything wrong.

      2. @kbdavies Lol. Rosberg for sure, ever calculating german, knew well ahead LH engine would blow, and decided to take out Vettel, with his right rear, to get rid of second fastest rival. But we all know Rosberg is clumsy so he spun after successfuly taking out Vettel.

      3. @kbdavies Rosberg gets torpedoed by Vettel from behind and deserves a penalty? I want whatever you are smoking

    11. bit harsh

      they want a good show but penalise a bit of wheel to wheel action

      very odd

    12. I don’t understand why Karun Chandhok kept saying that if Rosberg hadn’t been given a penalty he might have been fighting with the Red Bulls at the end? Did he somehow think the penalty had automatically pushed the cars ahead of him 10 seconds further in front or something? Very odd.

      1. Because in reality he was only running 4 seconds behind the red bulls, but had a 10 second penalty. At 4 seconds and with the Red Bulls in sight who knows how close he could have managed?

      2. I think Karun’s point was that Rosberg was able to quickly increase his gap to Kimi from 5s up to 12-ish seconds. If the penalty weren’t there, then Rosberg could have attempted to chase down the Red Bulls with such a pace advantage.

        I think Karun’s point is slightly invalidated by the fact that Mercedes were somewhat reluctant to let Rosberg use the higher engine mode for more than a few laps, given what happened to Hamilton’s engine.

      3. Ah, so Rosberg was controlling the gap to Kimi to just over 12 seconds. I thought he was fighting to stay that far ahead. There was a graphic on screen that seemed to show Kimi closing the gap again, which must have confused me. Didn’t think about engine worries either.

    13. If Rosberg didn’t think he’d get a penalty for that, then it speaks volumes of his attitude towards the other drivers.

      1. Or perhaps he just thought it was a legitimate move, like many of us do?

        1. Rosberg was too far back to cleaning make that move and, if he hadn’t hit Raikkonen, he would have gone wide and potentially off track (in the replays you can see him actively fighting the car to keep it in the right direction). It’s not dissimilar to his incidents in Austria and Germany, where he braked late and expected the other car to yield when they had no reason to, and as such ran into them or ran them off the track. As I said, if he considers running into another driver to push them aside in the middle of the corner not worthy of a penalty, and it’s not even the first time he’s done so this year, then as I said it says something about his attitude.

    14. I really dont get this penalty.

      Overtake was exactly what we audience want. There was contact without damaging either car, so as close as possible racing.

      What is next? Penalties for almost touching?

    15. It was a perfectly legitimate move… Matt Neal and Jason Plato do that kind of stuff all the time.

    16. @Keith Collantine – could you please provide an updated summary of the penalty point situation of competing drivers in advance of next weekend’s GP? With Vettel and Rosberg each picking up 2 points this weekend it’ll be good to know where they stand.

      Also, did Ocon get any penalty points, in addition to his 5s penalty?

    17. There’s is a schism here: some consider that pushing an opponent to pass is OK, others don’t.
      I don’t like it because it doesn’t require skills. I could do it.
      I praise F1 drivers for their skills, because they can make a move in a very tight space without touching. That’s what I want to see. Cars bumping and crashing are OK for some other series, but not F1.

      1. My thoughts exactly… it was more like a touring car move, where a bit of contact is acceptable and where the cars are built to withstand it.

      2. Well said. You can’t just throw your car at the apex and expect the other car to disappear.

    18. Pretty sensationalist headline …
      But yeah, I think the penalty was deserved, and 10 seconds were appropriate. He went a bit too far, but it still happened within the boundaries of racing, and the penalty reflected that. It gave Räikkönen a second chance to defend his position, which he narrowly missed. All in all a fair and just decision.

    19. I agree with the Channel 4 guys, Penalty was completely stupid.

      That is the sort of hard fought racing & daring overtaking attempts that I want to see. Fans & stewards have become too used to boringly easy & straightforward push of a button DRS passes in the designated passing zones so are clearly no longer used to seeing any proper overtaking attempts.

      Yeah there was some contact but thats racing, No serious damage was done & both cars were able to continue without issue.

      Everyone harps back to that great Gilles Villeneuve & Rene Arnoux battle in 1979 at Dijon which featured contact & saw both try to barge the other out the way at times, If that sort of racing was applauded as been great then why isn’t it now?

      I’d rather see drivers try aggressive, Risky & exciting overtakes than just sit behind following the car not trying to pass or simply wait for the DRS zone to push the highway pass button.

      1. Its supposed to be a non contact sport…that way less people die .

      2. Or you make the move and don’t touch your opponent. It was completely doable, but requires a lot of skills. I don’t remember seeing as many bang between rivals in the 90s. And there was no DRS back then.

    20. Kimi broke his car floor because rosberg overtaking skills, so penalty was right.

    21. He should have had a drive through penalty at least. I watched the race from the K1 stand and was less than 100 metres from the incident. I watched Rosberg follow Kimi without any chance of passing for ages until he did his “pass or crash”.
      By giving him a 10 sec penalty he was rewarded by his illegal move and simply pulled away. With a drive through he would have been placed back behind Kimi where he should be. Thereby restoring the status quo.

      1. Agree, I don’t understand these 10 second adders for incidents that happen well before the end of the race.

        It was the first hard pass of the day for Rosberg and the result was clumsy. Nobody follows with a superior car better than Rosberg.

        1. the 5/10 seconds works when there’s still pitstops and I dare say it was going to be announced before the next round of stops, but then Hamilton’s car failed, the virtual safety car was called and everyone scurried into the pits before it could be announced so the worst of it’s effect was mitigated.

    22. Alan Jones gave his verdict on Aussie TV post race: “Racing incident. If you want drivers battling for position, do not give ridiculous penalties for having a go.”

      So when he is in the role of drivers steward, no penalties will be given and complaints will be made about the inconsistency.

      1. ANSWER to avoid inconsistancy: Hire Alan Jones to be the permanent race drivers steward !

    23. really dumb move from Rosberg, pretty lucky it didn’t cause much damage to him or Raikkonen…
      I can’t quite believe how many people are backing him up, overtaking another car by driving into it and pushing it out of the corner is not what racing should be about.

      Nor was this the first time he attempted something like this..

    24. I was surprised when it was announced the stewards would even investigate the Rosberg and Raikkonen coming together so I thought the penalty on Rosberg was harsh but as it was a 10 second penalty it wasn’t going to change his result and barring a safety car he was going to be able to pull a big enough gap on Raikkonen and so keep the position he finished on track.

      Although I did not think it merited a penalty I do not think Rosbergs overtake of Raikkonen was a good one, it was a clumsy at best.

      He just dived down the inside when there wasn’t enough space and ending up hitting Raikkonen, from the onboard footage from Rosberg’s car it seemed like he was close to hitting Raikkonen’s front wing.

      If the contact had damaged Raikkonen’s car or spun him around I think the stewards would have been justified in penalising Rosberg.

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