Vettel: F1 sending wrong message over yellow flags use

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel agrees with Lewis Hamilton that Formula 1 is sending out the wrong message by not having penalised Nico Rosberg in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1 W07 Hybrid

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF16-H locks up under braking

Podium: second place Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1 Team

Fernando Alonso, McLaren with Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari and Diego Ioverno, Ferrari Operations Director

Podium: winner Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 Team

Rosberg escaped a sanction after stewards deemed he had slowed down sufficiently in the double yellow flags situation under which the German secured pole position on Saturday.

Hamilton said after the race that he did not think Rosberg had lifted enough, and that he would have struggled to stop if a car or a marshal was on track.

Vettel agreed that the situation was not good.

"The worst thing about this is that we are an example," Vettel said.

"Next week there'll be a go-karting race and there will be a double yellow flag somewhere because somebody went off, and the marshals probably go out and help him, and then the ways the kids think is 'I don't need to lift much because in Formula 1 is okay', and that's the pinnacle and that's how we have to behave.

"That's what I don't like about it. I think in the past we didn't have the technology to time the different sectors around the track, and we only had Sector 1, Sector 2 and Sector 3.

"The rule of thumb was that you are not allowed to improve in a yellow sector. Double yellows, if you look it up in the rulebook, means be prepared to stop.

"Arguably if you go two km/h or four km/h slower or you brake a little earlier and you drop one and a half tenths I don't think you are preparing to stop."

"Unnecessary" talks

Vettel said all the "unnecessary" discussions about the situation had only made things worse for the sport.

"It's one of those things we are trying to improve and try to make it more fair to give us drivers the chance to finish our lap even if an unfortunate situation comes up where there's a yellow flag, but in my opinion it got worse," he said.

"We had many unnecessary discussions.

"As I said, in the past it was clear: don't improve under yellow. Now we can and we need to debate how much is considered a lift and how is not.

"I'm not a fan of penalising every single one because we need to race as well, but I think it was pretty much what I was trying to say earlier, and I think we didn't set a great example yesterday [Saturday]."