[Journeyer]

@raymondu999 Yes, it would’ve been for the Maldonado incident. See video below.

[Oletros]

@raymondu999

The thing people doesn’t seem tio get is that flags are the primary sector indicators, lights supplement them OR replace them.

So the floppy is a sector outright, and has been since the dawn of times.

[Prisoner Monkeys]

@raymondu999 – That would make sense. I remember seeing Maldonado listed as a retirement on the timing splits aross the bottom of the page, but there was no coverage of his retirement from Sky. I assumed it was mechanical, but when I checked the Wikipedia pages after the race, I saw his retirement was listed as an accident.

As for those penalties handed out at Valencia, they were for breaking the delta time – cars were arriving in the pits too quickly. This highlighted a flaw in the system because Jenson Button was practically on top of the pits when he was told to enter the lane, so he automatically broke the delta time (and couldn’t have avoided it short of stopping on the circuit). I believe this has since been amended.

[Journeyer]

@prisoner-monkeys Given he spun off on his own (see video at the top of the page), it was a bit of a silly mistake. Intriguingly, Vettel’s pass on Vergne was AFTER that turn. So it would be logical if there was a green flag being waved at the marshal post at pit exit – that was already past the point of the accident.

[Dave]

Thanks for the info on the 5s penalties @raymondu999 and @prisoner-monkeys . Do you know if those penalties were in place of a drive through penalty or if there’s a separate rule for speeding behind the safety car? I double checked and they were applied after the race so I thought it might be that they were in place of a drive through. If that’s the case then it’s a precedent for adding a time other than 20s in place of a drive through penalty which would give the FIA a convenient ‘out’ if they wanted to acknowledge the infringement but avoid changing the championship result.

[Prisoner Monkeys]

@davea86

Do you know if those penalties were in place of a drive through penalty or if there’s a separate rule for speeding behind the safety car?

I believe it was an entirely separate rule. It may have also been a special circumstance, because half a dozen drivers were flagged for it. The stewards may have deferred judgement until after the race to look at why so many cars broke the rule. Realising that there was no way to have avoided breaking the rule simply because they were right on top of the pit lane at the time of the accident in question, the stewards chose a very light punishment to point out that the drivers had broken a rule, but also concede that it was a bad rule.

Nevertheless, it’s a completely different issue to the one that might be here. Assuming for the moment that Vettel did perform an illegal pass, it’s not handled the same way as cars speeding behind the safety car, and so the penalty would likely be different to the episode in Valencia even before the rules regarding delta times were adjusted.

[mnmracer]

The gif has been cleaned up a bit, and now clearly shows a flag being waved.
http://s7.directupload.net/images/121128/xq7wq2yp.gif

Anyone still convinved that is somehow a yellow flag?

[Fernando]

Last Night I wrote a comment about that I think that we were discussing about a fake gif, today a good friend send me a youtube link that compare gif with official video image from FOM, and is very clear that no flag is waving on the marshall post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqOApyo51iI&feature=youtu.be
Anybody more think that the gif image is so clear with all this water drops on the camera?

[Oletros]

@Fernando

Water drops? Really?

Look at this, lap 4. Are that water drops?
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/9219/alo04b.jpg

[Oletros]

@mnmracer

Now the usual suspects are saying that the gif has been manipulated and there is no flag at all.

[snowman.john]

I admit I haven’t read all 12 pages of this thread yet, but what I have read is fascinating. Has any one raised the point that its not just about keeping position under yellows but drivers should also lift off? I see other cars (namely a STR) lifting off, I don’t see Vettel slowing for them.

[mnmracer]

There was no flag:
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/2587/thereisnoflag.jpg

[mnmracer]

I have been marshall on Zandvoort, and @darkenforca can back me up on this.
Following a yellow, yellow/red or red flag, there must always be a follow-up flag at the next manned marshall post. Either to continue the ‘track situation’ (in this case, another yellow flag), or to end it with a green flag.

So the only debate possible is what color flag there was.
Whether there was a flag is not debatable.

[Bob]

@nanof1 – The motion blur in the video you just provided makes it near impossible to ascertain. Why you keep calling the gif “fake”, I have no idea – the gif is most certainly from the FOM onboard feed, albeit in higher resolution, and a broadcaster’s border. Even if you dismiss the gif, there are many other freeze-frame screenshots from videos showing the flag – see the video posted by raymondu999 on page 11.

[August]

@nanof1

That’s a failed propaganda video. It’s badly badly synchronized with the gif, you can see the flag at 0:06 in the video, in the gif at 0:07. And that gif can be made of a better quality video.

[Author]

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