SciFrog:

I am not going to remake the arguments again. They are written above. Of course it matters if he was in control or not, actually it is the only thing that matter for deciding to impose a penalty or not.

When you run a red light but you are a passenger in the car, do you get a ticket? No, even though you could have influenced the driver so he would not run the red light...

 

That's in your personal opinion.

The FIA rules does not make that distinction. It's black and white.

Vettel is deemed to have left the racing surface his whole car crossed the white line. It does to matter if he was out of control and left the surface or not. When he rejoin-ed on the other side of the corner, his car was deemed to have rejoin-ed the racing surface when his whole car also crossed the line, and at that point he was also right on the racing line AND impeding another driver, who has to brake to avoid contact. In the eyes of the rule, he is to have rejoin-ed in a unsafe way. 

You can scrap the bottom of the barrel and argue till the sun comes up from the West, it still won't change the fact that he broke the rule. The stewards was pretty clear stating the penalty in the Qualifying ruling, Charles also left the racing surface and rejoin-ed unsafely. 

It's actually a very consistent ruling all weekend. 

 


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