Oh Canada…
- Richard Baxter
- Jun 11, 2019
- 3 min read
Once again the Canadian Grand Prix has delivered. This time not necessarily the most exciting race in terms of on track action; but in enormous controversy.
Ferrari had really strong pace, they were leading the Grand Prix and looked pretty comfortable.
Hamilton was gaining and we looked set for an exciting final 20 or so laps.
Then the whole race changed.
Going in to turn 3 the rear of Vettel’s Ferrari stepped out giving him no option but to cut across the grass. As he rejoined he was still gaining control and nearly collided with Hamilton.
He was latterly handed a 5 second penalty for re-joining the track unsafely.
There has been a lot of debate about whether the penalty was correct or not.
My personal opinion is that it was an extremely harsh penalty and simply should’ve been classed as a racing incident, and in all honesty this cost us all an incredible end to the race.
With the penalty applied Hamilton didn’t need to try and battle for the win, he knew he could just bring the car home in second place. Likewise for Vettel, he had no motive to win the race as he knew it was likely Hamilton would finish within 5 seconds and gain the victory. And if Hamilton did try and overtake, Vettel with the red mist settled in could’ve gone full Michael Schumacher and taken him out.
The nature of the Canada circuit is that there is very little run off at points, and just a wall. But that is part of what makes it so great.
If you look at the area where Vettel went off, there is only a small patch of grass, then it goes straight back to having a solid wall either side.
As Vettel said himself where is he supposed to go? It is not a corner where you can impose a rule to drive around a cone if you run wide.
The stewards claimed that he forced Hamilton off the track as he rejoined. In the absolute strictest terms this is true as he had just crossed the white line and was on the curb; however this is the usual racing line. Realistically, as there is a solid wall there he literally couldn’t force him fully off the track – Hamilton would’ve hit the wall if that was the case.
When watching the action live I did shout out as I thought they had collided. I was expecting to see some wing, wheel or suspension damage. But fortunately they didn’t collide. It was very close and could’ve ended up much worse – but ultimately watching replays Vettel was still gaining control of his car and didn’t deliberately squeeze Hamilton in to the wall. Hamilton did still just have enough space for his car without getting damage.
In fact looking at the replays you can see Vettel was still sliding, and it wasn’t until after he regained control that he looked in his mirror and saw Hamilton.
Watch the incident for yourself here.
I have to say I am not a Vettel fan myself, but I do feel sorry for him. He had driven brilliantly all weekend and deserved the victory.
This is racing after all, and we would all like to see it settled on track rather than by the stewards.
With Ferrari announcing that they plan to appeal the decision I don’t think we have heard the last of this, and I’m sure the fall out is going to continue for a while.
If the season does change and Ferrari continue with strong pace, if they were to miss out on a championship by 7 points then this weekend could have even bigger consequences.
Finally, whilst we all have our own opinions on this, and there is much debate - this is why we all love Formula 1.
Quoting Murray: “Anything can happen … and it usually does”.
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