Sebastian Vettel feels drivers can only have themselves to blame for the kind of penalties they are being handed for incidents due to their ‘whinging and complaining’.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver was handed a three-place grid penalty for blocking Carlos Sainz Jr. during Qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix on Saturday afternoon, with the German revealing that he was not made aware of the situation by his team on the pit wall.
Vettel feels that the constant moaning in recent years has meant stewards have been forced to take more draconian decisions about punishing drivers for their misdemeanours, with the German having the thought that it should be left to the drivers to sort it out on track rather than take penalties.
“I wasn’t told, I tried to look out for him, I don’t want to drag on about it, but… The rule book’s now so fricking big,” Vettel is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.
“I think it’s a result of all the drivers, all of us, I think we’ve more or less all been there, whinging and complaining, ‘oh he’s done this, he’s done that’.
“In the end you should let us sort it out on track, that’s my belief.”
Sainz acknowledged that Vettel did not deliberately block him during Qualifying, and the Renault Sport Formula One Team racer admitted he would have been more angry about the incident had it had prevented him from advancing into the top ten shootout.
“I feel like this situation is sometimes more the engineers’ fault, not the driver’s fault, for not letting you know someone is coming,” said Sainz. “I must admit if that incident didn’t allow me to go into Q3 I would be standing here a lot more angry, a lot more disappointed.
“But I did such a good lap in Q2.”
