Vettel penalised for impeding Kovalainen in China

[romephius]

Just when Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel had got his 10-place penalty from Fuji rescinded, the German rookie has found himself docked five places on the grid for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

The sanction followed a judgement by the stewards in Shanghai that found Vettel guilty of impeding Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen's best qualifying lap. Vettel had qualified 12th, but will now start 17th.

In a separate incident, Super Aguri’s Anthony Davidson was exonerated after a report that he undertook BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica in the pit lane during final free practice on Saturday morning.

The provisional grid for the Chinese Grand Prix:
1 Hamilton, 2 Raikkonen
3 Massa, 4 Alonso
5 Coulthard, 6 Schumacher
7 Webber, 8 Heidfeld
9 Kubica, 10 Button
11 Liuzzi, 12 Trulli
13 Kovalainen, 14 Davidson
15 Rosberg, 16 Barrichello
17 Vettel, 18 Fisichella
19 Wurz, 20 Sato
21 Sutil, 22 Yamamoto

Source: www.formula1.com

Vettel not really helping himself lately is he??

Rom

[johnbull]

Isn't this whole thing getting a bit beyond the joke.

We have a set of rules that puts on pole the fellow with least fuel, but not the quickest guy in the qualifying hour.

We have qualifying results changed by stewards willy nilly so you end up with a grid with no semblence to reality.

We have drivers who are scared to overtake for fear of being penalised.

We have drivers who fear to speak their opinion about the rule makers for fear of being sanctioned - and black listed by MAX.

Give me old style GP RACING anyday.

[Ian]

Must agree there JB, I liked this style qual when it started, but now it's a joke, lets go back to 1hr solid qual and then the fastest throughout WILL get pole.

[romephius]

The 1 hour quali session was overhauled because realistically it was drivers circulating for 55 minutes and then 5 minutes of extreme action.... so what was the point of a whole hour??....this style of quali was brought in to create more of a spectacle for the fans and to give more track space to the truly fastest....

I respect that you guys liked the 1 hour go fast setup of quali, but, personally I LOVE this type of quali, you get who is absolute fastest in Q2, the, you get fastest in race trim in Q3.

As always I could be wrong and this is just my opinion.

Rom

[Dare]

I liked the one lap qualifying,no traffic just
put out your best lap

[Scott]

I'm with Rom here, I was excited when I heard about this Q coming to be (although I liked Tony Purnell's idea of actual heat races better), and I still like it.  It needs some rule tweaking though - something to hopefully make the stewards less involved in the outcome - maybe space out the drivers by about 10 seconds.  When someone passes the green, turn on the red for 10 seconds, then green and repeat.  All teams MUST go in those first 220 seconds or be relegated to the bottom of that session timing list.  After that, it's like normal - come in and change tires, and continue as needed, until the session ends.  I'm sure you guys will pick holes in it, but it could be worked through.

It has two advantages.  It will make the blocking incidents in the early part of the session fewer or unlikely, and it will make for a scramble in the pits (let those guys sweat like NASCAR - see, I do have some good things to say about it!), while everyone tries to get their cars out for the next green light.

[Steven Roy]

Get the fuel out of the cars.  Let the teams set them up for qualifying then differently for the race.  Let having pole position mane something other than being decided on fuel weight. 

I liked the 12 lap system.  The only problem with that was that the first 20 minutes could be a bit dull but the last 5 always made up for it.  So make it a 40 minute session and th problem is solved.  40 minutes of cars at their ultimate performance and drivers going for it instead of saving their cars for the next day or their engines for the next race.

[johnbull]

The only reason the old 1 hour open qualifying was changed to the 1 lap flier for everybody was television. Nothing else. And that's a fact.

With the old system the TV crews inevitably gave more coverage to the big names with the Minardis etc never figuring. The single lap system gave every car equal air time.

Then they changed it all again for today's absurd system where the guy on pole is not necessarily the fastest guy in the hour, and that after almost an hour of wasting fuel, tyres etc.

[Ian]

                            And the moral of the qualifying argument


              YOU CAN'T PLEASE ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME



 hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

[Scott]

Steven, I'm with you - get rid of Park Ferme as well...I loved the strategy options they used to have (particularly Ross Brawn's use of them) when everyone had no idea of fuel levels before the start...lately whenever you see a Toyota, Honda or Red Bull in the final Q, you are pretty sure who is going to be dusting off pit lane early in the race.