I dont know why everybody makes such a fuzz about it, Vettel gave a car width space for narain, he on the other side just wanted to get into vettels slip stream asap, and made a mistake a lot of great drivers made before him once or twice in their career. Its a simple racing incident that says nothing about nks driving abilties. Vettel was just a bit pissed after the race for it didnt go very well (again)
afaik they wanted to retire because this would have allowed them to change the gearbox and stuff without being penalized in the next race
The closing speed is quite high, but that doesn't explain why Karth drifts back across without a clue as to who is there, or, in fact that anyone could possibly be there. He has recovered control, Vettel is in plain sight when they collide. Maybe Karth is looking for a steering wheel button or tweeting "big slide there lol", but in normal circumstances an f1 driver would react to that car passing them and not hit it.
I am not so sure he is in plain sight at all. The angle of Narain's car and the position of Vettel could easily fall within the 'blind spot'. At the point which Narain would naturally check his mirrors at around 0.08 Vettel is right along side and Narain probably already commmited to moving his car to the right. Remember he did run wide, and was off the typical line as the car wasn't loaded at the previous apex like everyone else. He car was 'straighter' at the exit then most other cars due to the previous error hence his slightly unusual line as he hit Vettel. He was point his car towards the next entry point earlier because of the nature of the exit from the previous corner.
In fact on more closer observation Narain is still trying to gain traction at the point of Vettel passing due to them being wet from his going wide, so he may not have been checking his mirrors, understandably.
We can't expect Vettel to calculate all this and we can't expect Narain to deal with being overtaken as he went wide, losing traction, re-adjusting his line and then knowing Vettel was going to rock past.
It's the ideal line that Narain is on, try not to judge the incident from TV sideline cameras, but from Vettels onboard. You'll see that he cuts his nose off. Doesn't matter what Narain is doing, when you cut someones nose off how can it be their fault?
I disagree that he cuts his nose off. Vettel has left plenty of room and doesn't move to the left. If Karth moves across, then contact is his fault, especially when it's front wing to rear wheel contact. If Vettel had thought he would do that he would have left more room, like half the road width maybe, but Karth is, much more at fault in my opinion. Why isn't he thinking: "i am recovering, I'm being lapped, I should probably not drift blindly back into the middle of the road without a care or clue about who is already there"?
Again, Karthikeyan was driving the ideal line. So Kartikeyan wasn't the one drifting anywhere.
The incident was at the exit of turn 8 (a right hander) going down to the left hand hairpin of turn 9. Kartikeyan followed the racing line and nothing else.
In relation to the ideal line, Vettel swoops left across the HRTS nose and connects his left rear with the right front part of the HRT wing.
Also bear in mind that the HRT is not TURNING left, he's actually already going towards the entry of nine (going diagonally across the straight) so he's not turning at all, he's on the ideal line being predictable and driving predictably. (which is exactly what you want from a lapped car)
Bearing in mind how HRT affected both the McLaren and Red Bull races, would it be wrong for either or both teams to start running a couple of Q1 laps with the softer tyre in order to decrease the 107% time and keep them out of future races altogether ?
How is it Vettel's fault when he doesn't even move across onto Karthikeyan's line?
Karthikeyan was the one getting back on track after his off-road adventure. Vettel gave him room, Karthikeyan decided to pretend he was a triceratops and just charged on ahead, had a slippy moment in the wet (by his own admission no less!) and bonked his cranium into Vettel's tyre.
Karthikeyan was also the driver behind and in greater control over the situation than Vettel. Whether he was on the "ideal line" is irrelevant. He had awareness, opportunity, and ability to avoid a collision and failed to do so.
But you have to consider that he wasn't drifting. His line was already compromised before that incident because he went wide. He had lost traction and was in recovery. You can't compare his line to other drivers who had not gone wide. His car was most likely pointing directly at the next entry point as he was trying to find traction (he can't simply make his car disappear off the track). I'd bet that anyway which is entirely predictable and understandbale. The only reason other cars found themselves a tad further to the left is because they are under much heavier loading due to taking the proper line through the corner.
He knew there was a car behind him, but I doubt he knew how close Vettel was behind that, and I am pretty sure he wouldn't have seen Vettel. He got passed by whoever he was being the blue for, and then he was in 'it's slicks on the wet' mode.
Vettel took a risk, just like Hamilton did with Koby at Spa. You can assume the driver won't be there, but in circumstances where it might be close.... always leave a little extra.
The situation asked for both Narain and Seb to calculate a number of circumstances which they simply couldn't do.
The closing speed was too fast, so for him to have avoided a collision with Vettel would mean that he's supposed to just brake on a straight piece of road with nobody in sight? Are you for real?
It's a very simple case of Vettel going alot faster than Kartikeyan and going back to the ideal line too soon.
It's a straight, you can't move across if there's a car there regardless of if the normal line is a diagonal or not, not even in a race for position, never mind if you're being lapped.
I've said Vettel could have been more cautious, but it's still Karth's fault for a serious lack of awareness.
Of course it matters, because it always needs at least 2 people for an accident to happen, especially in this one where both did their part.
You can make it look like you want it to be, Blueflame, but the fact remains that Narain has a major role in this incident that caused a major material failure on both cars (video evidences were posted a few times), and while he had nothing to gain it was the right thing to hand out a penalty.
He gets a blue flag, he runs wide on the wet stuff and a car passes him. He then has about 2 seconds to calculate these things.
1. Controlling the car which is on slicks that have a coat of water.
2. Recognising that Vettel was far behind, yet was approaching at speed. Despite probably not being able to see him in the mirrors.
3. Driving a HRT.
I think you are asking too much of a driver in that position. A lack of 'awareness', well yeah, but it wasn't a serious error. It was a "****, where did HE come from?" error. I suspect at the time he made the input to move the car to the right (at this point he was still struggling for traction) Vettel was close, if not right beside him.
If we are expecting Narain to take all these considerations into account, then surely we should ask the same from Seb. Narain had to be aware of
1. Blue flags
2. Cars passing
3. Driving a shit car
4. Running wide and trying to recover from that.
Why is Seb let off when all he had to do was pass a very slow car without getting too close? Why wasn't Seb aware of the difficulties Narain found himself in?? All Vettel had to worry about was one car in front of him. narain had to worry about a whole lot more.
If you expect him to react to something that isn't obviously there then you are expecting to much. There's no way he would of seen him in time TO react. He was holding his ground cos he's sick of being bullied about which I understand.
Bollocks! HRT are as much in the race as anyone else. He can't drive around at 60kph constantly looking in his mirrors. A number of retirements could lead to a lucky 10th place for one of the lower teams which is worth millions, so yes they are very much in the race.
He made a tiny error, as did Vettel and that's that.
Ah, thats whre the truth lies? It was an act of defiance? And now say again that it was not a penalty woth
True, but it wouldn't have made any difference to his position if he'd lifted a bit and that is all that was needed and he'd have gone home with a better result!
Watch the onboard seriously, Vettel failed for not giving enough room and cutting across to early. Kartikeyan was less than a meter away from the white line on slicks, that was wet. WHAT DO YOU WANT HIM TO DO? WHERE IS HE SUPPOSED TO GO? REALLY?
Vettel should be turning more right here but instead he straightlines right infront of him. Brundle and Coulthard both have said it was a mis-judgement from Vettel which only confirms my opinion to be honest.