Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen has had 20 seconds added to his race time, in lieu of a drive-through penalty, for his last lap clash with Sebastian Vettel in the Austrian Grand Prix.
However the stewards have announced seven of the eight drivers who were under investigation for failing to slow in response to yellow flags following the crash have been cleared.Vettel passed Raikkonen at turn five while the pair were chasing Williams’ George Russell for 11th place, but Raikkonen turned into his former Ferrari team mate and the contact sent both into the gravel which caused Aston Martin driver Vettel to retire.
Raikkonen was found to be at fault for the incident and was handed a drive-through penalty by the stewards. But with the incident occurring so late into the race, it was converted into a 20s penalty which has no impact on his 16th place finish.
“The stewards heard from the driver of car seven (Kimi Raikkonen), the driver of car five (Sebastian Vettel), team representatives and reviewed video evidence,” read the stewards’ decision.
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“Exiting turn five, Raikkonen closed the door on Vettel, which caused a collision taking both cars off the track.”
The stewards also investigated eight drivers for failing to slow sufficiently for the doubled waved yellow flags which were displayed following the crash.
The five points-scoring drivers who were under investigation – Carlos Sainz Jnr, Sergio Perez, Daniel Ricciardo, Charles leclerc and Pierre Gasly – have all been cleared, as has Antonio Giovinazzi.
However Nikita Mazepin and Nicholas Latifi were given 10-second stop-go penalties – converted after the race to 30-second penalties – for failing to slow sufficiently. The stewards noted analysis of their telemetry showed both drivers “did not slow down sufficiently for the double waved and yellow sector.”
The pair were given three penalty points on their licences. Latifi is now on a total of six, Mazepin five.
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Jere (@jerejj)
4th July 2021, 19:24
Latifi isn’t mentioned in the mix, but probably the same outcome. Surprisingly, Mazepin is the only one who got penalized for double yellows out of the eight checked.
Kimi, unsurprising. Russell didn’t move under braking in the end, nor did he look like moving from Kimi’s T-cam view.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th July 2021, 19:29
Correction: Latifi too.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
4th July 2021, 19:32
Kimi’s penalty is laughable. Wholly Seb’s fault but with some wicked train of thought they find Kimi to blame? I mean I don’t even…
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
4th July 2021, 19:35
the vast majority of comments I’ve read and heard thought Kimi was almost 100% responsible for this. You shouldn’t be that surprised given what most think – as well as the stewards decision.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
4th July 2021, 19:38
@thegianthogweed It isn’t Kimi’s fault that Vettel failed to turn at that right-hand kink and stay on his line. There was plenty of space inside. Just like in LEC-VET incident in Brazil 2019.
The sport has been put to bad light today, innocent bystanders being penalized…
Jere (@jerejj)
4th July 2021, 19:48
@huhhii Seb’s steering wheel was pointing right as per the normal driving line and didn’t do any sudden erratic movement leftwards.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
4th July 2021, 20:01
@jerejj You can’t do the normal racing line when there’s another driver on the outside of you. Seb should’ve been more to the right, there was space.
@kaiie The track goes to the right to right there and Kimi only turned to the corner. A lack of awareness by Seb, he should’ve either yielded the position or gone more to the right.
Robbie (@robbie)
4th July 2021, 20:15
@huhhii You couldn’t be more wrong and the stewards agree.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
4th July 2021, 19:51
Having looked at the accident multiple times, it is pretty clear that Räikkönen turns in on Vettel. If you compare the position of Vettel’s car to the inside white line of the corner, it stays constant, while Räikkönen moves from the extreme left of the track towards the Aston Martin.
BasCB (@bascb)
4th July 2021, 21:34
Indeed @kaiie. Looks like Kimi just did not see/notice Vettel was there, next to him and turned into him.
Lopes da Silva
4th July 2021, 19:38
I watched video onboards and I think it’s Kimi’s fault.
John H (@john-h)
4th July 2021, 20:20
Wow, how biased are you @huhhii , I don’t see how you’re being objective at all. How anyone can say a “wicked train of thought” is anyone that might blame Kimi, seriously. Time to take away the bias man.
d0senbrot (@d0senbrot)
4th July 2021, 20:37
Come on, usually you are a senseful poster here. Look at Sebs onboard. Check his right front tire as its travelling ever so slightly closer to the white line. At the same time Kimi had about two car width room to the left. Neither did Kimi have the momentum to pull along side nor did he have the right to dictate the corner, as he was already half a car length behind.
baasbas
4th July 2021, 20:50
Be a fan of one driver, fine.. See things more from their perspective in 50-50 moments, fine.. But this is next level denial.
Lee1
4th July 2021, 22:49
Eh? Were you watching the same race? Kimi steered into Vettel despite being behind him! Vettel was not far off being to the far right of the track when he was hit! I am not Vettels biggest fan and I like Kimi, but no one in their right mind could think that Vettel was to blame for the incident.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
5th July 2021, 0:57
In that scenario most drivers have hugged the white line on the inside, Vettel ran the normal line, no wonder he collected raikkonen.
Tsubasa
5th July 2021, 7:35
I don’t understand why Seb didn’t go to into the grass or stopped the car to let Kimi pass.
Doesn’t he knows that when Kimi is here, he has to simply let him through like a gentleman ?
Racing is « let kimi pass. And bring him his drink. Bwoah. »
Emma
5th July 2021, 8:06
Are you serious or you’re just playing around with us?
PeterF
5th July 2021, 12:02
Trying to figure out if you’re joking or just blind? Seb didn’t change his line one bit, Kimi had like 3 cars’ worth of space on the outside, yet elected to drive into Seb.
Dave
4th July 2021, 20:02
Kimi got Hockenheim’d again, but outside the points.
Mark (@mrcento)
4th July 2021, 20:28
How the hell has Norris wound up earning the same amount of penalty points as Kimi?
Landos was even debatable as a penalty at all and 5 seconds was harsh. No crash, hard racing on an overly ambitious move from Perez that was trying to wall of death it around the outside and was running out of grip and space all on his own. 2 penalty points.
Kimi takes a driver out the race through complete inattention, 100% his fault, and gets 20 seconds added to his time in lieu of a drive through, so a significantly more severe penalty for a significantly worse incident that caused a crash…. 2 penalty points.
Logic?
d0senbrot (@d0senbrot)
4th July 2021, 21:13
Hold on, stranger. Because the path of searching for logic in the decisions of the stewards is tedious, probably endless and therefore ultimately pointless.
K (@sugoi)
4th July 2021, 21:51
Stewards: let’s add…
..1d12..
… 2 license points!
ttongsul (@ccpbioweapon)
4th July 2021, 21:35
Mark welcome to the joke FIA bureaucracy. LEW had the same problem last year almost facing a race ban with ridiculous penalty points adding up for trivial pedantic reasons(points for start simulations at the end of the pit lane in Russia last year, entering closed pit lane in Monza because he didn’t see a tiny red light 100m away at 200 km/h, slight contact when albon left the door wide open .) whilst drivers who used their car as a mad max weapon had zero..
Remember this is the same FIA that allows talent less Mazepin to race in f1 thanks to gaming the super license points system due to billionaire daddy buying top team seats in lower FIA divisions but indy car points leader and indy 500 2nd place finisher Álex Palou cannot race in F1 due to lack of super licence points not racing in enough FIA sanctioned series…
also on the subject of MAZ another FIA joke contradiction is that he cannot represent Russia due to its state sponsored doping punishment but allows Haas team uniform and car to have huge Russian flag paintjobs..
long story short, the FIA Is a corrupt bureaucratic joke
K (@sugoi)
4th July 2021, 21:53
..yet here we stand!
stefano (@alfa145)
5th July 2021, 10:23
LEW stands for…? can we just stop using useless acronyms and calling drivers by name as if they were old friends of ours? It’s not like we are lacking space in the comments or keys on our keyboards
Dave
5th July 2021, 11:05
Well, imagine if this site had a character limit for comments…
anon
4th July 2021, 22:36
@mrcento there is a certain irony in that it has come about because of the calls for a more prescriptive system of allocating penalty points, which was meant to make the process of applying penalty points less subjective. To that end, certain offences were therefore given set values for the penalty points.
Under the current system, the weighting is such that causing a collision currently carries the same weight of penalty as forcing a driver off the track in order to hold a position. The argument seems to be that, if one driver didn’t take avoiding accident by going off the track, the end result is that the two drivers would have collided, hence why they are judged to be similarly severe – whether you agree with that argument is another matter though (I suspect, from your original post, the answer will probably be no).
someone or something
4th July 2021, 22:09
In case of Räikkönen derangement syndrome, watch the following clips:
From Vettel’s perspective
From Räikkönen’s perspective
From Russell’s perspective
Thanks for your attention.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
4th July 2021, 22:45
Though I never doubted it was Räikkönen’s mistake, thank you for taking the time to upload those.
JohnEver (@johnever)
5th July 2021, 11:07
very clear
@huhhii should watch this :-)
someone or something
5th July 2021, 13:05
Oh, he has. But by the looks of it, he’d score even lower in an eye examination than his idol.
Aleš Norský
4th July 2021, 22:31
Well, maybe that was a good move by Räikkönen, because in the end he actually got ahead of Latifi due to getting smaller penalty!
PT
4th July 2021, 23:15
Karma for Vettel after ruining Alonso’s weekend by blocking him in qualifying and spoiling a great lap.
erikje
5th July 2021, 18:32
Not really his fault though.
The team warned him at the moment alonso is there.
pastaman (@)
6th July 2021, 13:21
Lol even Alonso said it wasn’t Vettel’s fault
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
5th July 2021, 8:14
Mazepin’s 30 second penalty means he’s classified one lap behind Mick. Looks like he’s improving.
Dave
5th July 2021, 18:45
“Slow pay-driver” comments being more frequent confirmed?
Balue (@balue)
5th July 2021, 11:20
Should also give the race director a penalty for putting out a safety car because of car stopped at a track exit.
andrew willsher
5th July 2021, 15:22
The Race Stewards should be ashamed especially Derek Warwick former f1 driver some of there decisions were inexcusable how about letting the 20 cars on track race each other hard but also fairly just like in his day otherwise what’s the point of formula one
Dave
6th July 2021, 10:05
Warwick even wanted to disqualify Schumacher in Hungary 2010 for that scary move, but chose not to. Come on Derek, why didn’t you take revenge?