F1: Penalty Drops Vettel From Second To Fifth In German GP

Formula 1

F1: Penalty Drops Vettel From Second To Fifth In German GP

Stewards penalized Sebastian Vettel for going off track to pass Jenson Button in the German GP...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted July 22, 2012 Hockenheim (DEU)

Sebastian Vettel has been given a 20-second penalty for exceeding the track limits when passing Jenson Button for second place in the closing stages of the German GP.

He was deemed to have left the track and gained an advantage, and was given the equivalent of a drive through penalty.

The penalty puts the German down to fifth place, and leaves the top four as Fernando Alonso, Button, Kimi Raikkonen and Kamui Kobayashi.

Before he got the penalty, Vettel had said: “I wasn’t sure where (Button) was. I couldn’t see him, to be honest, at that moment, and then decided to give him enough space and decided to go off line on the slippery paint, and still was able to stay ahead.

“I think clearly it’s not an advantage if you try to accelerate the paint rather than on the circuit. As I said, the only intention was not to crash and give him enough room.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.

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