The FIA confirmed on Sunday evening that it had received a notice of intention to appeal the decision of the Hungarian GP whereby the race stewards disqualified Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel on Sunday evening after the finish of the race – For now, Vettel’s finishing position and points have been reinstated.
The four-time world champion – who finished the Hungarian Grand Prix in second place – was ultimately disqualified for a non-compliance the minimum amount of fuel in his car’s tank at the finish of the race. Indeed, the race stewards must be able to take a litre of fuel from each tank after the race, which was not possible in Sebastian Vettel’s car.
The Aston Martin driver had only 0.3 litres of fuel left in the tank, while the regulations state that at least one litre should remain to allow sufficient samples of the fuel to be taken.
Officially, Sebastian Vettel has been disqualified, but his team has notified the FIA of his intention to appeal the stewards’ decision. In these conditions, the German’s car was placed under seal from Sunday evening and all points and race finishing position reinstated.
According to Germany’s Automotor und Sport, the appeal is unlikely to succeed as modern Formula 1 power units prove nearly impossible to physically remove the fuel system, where Aston Martin believes there’s the correct amount of fuel waiting to be tested. The FIA wasn’t able to test the fuel due to a faulty pump, hence the original penalty.
He got penalty because the pump used by the FIA used did not work, for gods sake how can that be a penalty
So this headline is bollocks then!
It was the FIA’s pump? Seriously? The FIA is unbelievably amateurish.
Clickbait
It is just ridiculous! A bad joke! Wow, we have a driver who causes an accident which makes a team to pay 1.8 million for the repair with the possibility to loose a championship and the driver gets a 10 second penalty! On the other end, for whichever reason it is missing .7 liter of gas and they discualify a driver!!! Seriously? First, drivers mistake, he gets 10 seconds penalty, second driver has no control over the fact, they cannot get their bloody gas out and they disqualify the driver???? It’s just me who thinks, something is wrong with this???
You really don’t get it. The implication of getting less fuel from Vettel’s car is that there was an element of cheating by deliberately putting less fuel in his car from onset to make the car lighter and faster. The other cases were racing incidents. Nothing deliberate! You cannot have same penalty for an accident and a deliberate act of commission.
Come on. The amount that the sample was short by was 700 MLS, which is less than a kilo in weight. One motor sport journo calculated that that the weight saving was probably worth 2 seconds over the whole race. The rule has been around for decades – Aston Martin were well aware of it. A sample can be taken at any time during a race week-end. The likelihood is either Aston Martin mistakenly underfilled the car or the fuel sensor info they were getting in the pits was wrong, and they used more fuel than they should have. Either way they broke a long established rule and deserve whatever the penalty is.
How much wait interia effect with less 700cc fuel, this is stupid level of penalty, while there is an act of God which is raining and wet condition, and a huge mess was done by Bottas, race was discontinued. A child can understand this, lastly, if AM claim gets to be true, which is less likely, apparently FIA would be same as pre Max Mosely era, under control some crazy individual.
0.7L isn’t going to cause an advantage, the tyres pick up heavier debris then that.
The two issues are unrelated. One was a driver penalty which is handled by the race stewards. Aston Martin had a technical penalty which is handled by the FIA technical delegate and is black and white – you’re guilty or you aren’t. There is no leeway.
We, the people that pay for this, deserve a better deal. What we want is a professionally run organisation, not something run by a bunch of clowns.
Seems their is politics even in F1
Rules are rules! They finished the race without the proper amount of fuel in it! Aston Martin knew it, that’s why they told Vettel to stop the car on the cool down lap!
nothing to do with his lgbq protest thing i’m sure
So much to unpick in the comments above, its scary… not least because for once, I am in complete agreement with my Prancing Horse friend 😉
I guess we will have to wait and see what the outcome of the appeal is, but Aston seem pretty convinced that there was sufficient fuel in the tank for the sample, and the F1 Nation podcast with Tom Clarkson and Damon Hill (official F1 podcast) they discussed how it was Aston’s software engineers that were crawling over the car while it was parked in the FIA garage, late on Sunday evening. This would suggest a technical issue rather than a actual infringement.
The time benefit of reduced weight is a known quantity, and anyone suggesting that on 700ml of fuel wouldn’t make any difference is either being deliberately obtuse, or doesn’t understand the implications – Cav has explained quite clearly
And finally, to equate this issue and the incident at Silverstone, is again, just demonstrating ones lack of understanding. Old saying, often attributed to Abraham Lincoln says “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt”….
That £1.8million quote from Horner is just a rubbish, “insurance claim” figure – you know the type that your insurers submit when a 3rd party has hit your car and you’re claiming for damage repairs…. Racing of ALL types has NEVER worked on a culture of claim for damages against a competitor, irrespective of ANY circumstances that caused it. For example, nobody claimed against Lotus for the Grosjean / Spa accident in 2012. The 2 issues are also COMPLETEY unrelated, and dealt with by different processes – one are the Stewards, the other the FIA Technical delegate, again as Cav explained
My suspicion is Aston Martin miscalculated the fuel numbers. The FIA require the car be to be fueled by weight and that number reported to them. While the fuel sample needed is a volume requirement. It seems the likelihood is that Aston Martin made a conversation mistake, thinking they had 1.4 liters at the end of the race when they really only had 300 MLS. At the end of the race when they realized the mistake, they told Vettel to stop on track, as had he continued on he would have completely run out of fuel.