Why right Vettel penalty shows what's wrong with F1

The decision to award Sebastian Vettel a five-second penalty in the Canadian Grand Prix caused an intense debate. But it has seriously exposed the inadequacies of Formula 1's complex sporting rules

Jonathan Noble Jun 13, 2019, 8:41 AM

Upd: Jun 13, 2019, 8:47 AM

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There are two ways of looking at what happened to Sebastian Vettel at the end of the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix.

1. Vettel's five-second penalty was wrong because we should let drivers race.

2. The FIA stewards did exactly the right thing in handing out a penalty for the way the Ferrari driver rejoined the track and forced Lewis Hamilton to take avoiding action.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.