New F1 radio rule is the pits, says Vettel

File picture: Reuters.

File picture: Reuters.

Published Jul 22, 2016

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Budapest - Sebastian Vettel has launched a scathing attack on Formula One’s ruling body over the latest change to the sport’s controversial team-radio rules.

The Ferrari driver called Thursday’s decision to tighten the restrictions “complete bull****”.

From Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, any driver who is informed of an issue with his car over team radio must “return to the pits to rectify the problem or retire”.

The move comes after Mercedes breached the regulations at the British Grand Prix by telling Nico Rosberg how to deal with a gearbox problem.

The German was handed a 10-second time penalty after the race, demoting him from second to third place.

This latest change is a stronger deterrent with a pit-stop taking more than double the time Rosberg was penalised at Silverstone.

“It’s a joke,” said Vettel. “I looked at the British race afterwards and I found, as a spectator, it was quite entertaining to hear the driver panicking on the radio and the team panicking at the same time.

“It was the element of the human being in a sport which is very complicated and technical.”

Going the wrong way

Four-time world champion Vettel believes the increasingly complex nature of the sport means the radio restrictions should be lifted. “We’re going the wrong way,” he said. “It’s bad. We should just go back to saying what we want (over the radio).

“There’s a lot of boring stuff on the radio that got banned. I don’t see the point. All the buttons we have on the steering wheel are there for a reason. It’s not like we say, ‘We can build buttons, let’s put them on the steering wheel’.

“It’s not our mistake that the cars are so complicated these days that you need a big manual and a steering wheel full of buttons to operate it.”

Vettel also rejected claims by Red Bull boss Christian Horner in the German media that he will move to Mercedes in 2018.

“Before today he was quite reliable,” joked Vettel. “I don’t know who talked to him and what state of mind he was in.”

Rosberg’s Silverstone relegation saw his championship lead over Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton cut to just one point.

The Briton’s victory on home soil was his fourth in five races and he is determined to continue that momentum in Budapest, where he has won on four occasions.

“The last race was still the greatest week I have had,” said Hamilton. “So I am hopefully riding that good wave into this weekend and I plan to catch the next good one.

“I surf and sometimes you have to wait for the wave to come, but catching it is the greatest feeling.

“That is very much how it is right now, to be on top of the wave.”

Daily Mail

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