How F1 boxed itself into Canada penalty own goal

When the crowd boos the podium presentation, it's never a good day for Formula 1.

This wasn't the way Lewis Hamilton wanted to win, and it certainly wasn't the way the furious Sebastian Vettel was willing to lose.

The 2019 Canadian Grand Prix should have been remembered for a tense battle between the pair, and perhaps for Ferrari finally kickstarting its season, but instead will be synonymous only for the moment the race deflated when, late on lap 57 of the 70, the stewards hit Vettel with the five-second penalty that decided the race in Hamilton's favour.

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Vettel left nobody in any doubt as to his feelings, parking up outside the FIA garage and heading off to remonstrate before having to be persuaded even to go to the podium.

Symbolically, as he walked through parc ferme he swapped the P1 board in front of Hamilton's Mercedes with the P2 one. The podium was apologetic, the crowd and many of those watching on television were gutted by what was another F1 own goal.

The race was defined by a few fateful seconds as Hamilton chased Vettel through the Turn 3/4 right/left chicane on lap 48.

Closing on the backmarker Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat, the rear snapped on Vettel on turn-in and spat him onto the grass on the inside. Vettel, making repeated corrections to straighten the car up, slid across the grass and back onto the track and his momentum, combined with a big kick as the rear lifted when he rejoined the circuit, inevitably carried him to the right side of the circuit.

Hamilton, on the racing line and keen to get around the outside of the Ferrari, inevitably had to check up, and the pair continued their battle. But Vettel was a dead man walking. When he was told about the penalty nine laps later by race engineer Riccardo Adami, he was furious:

Adami: "We've got a five-second time penalty for unsafe re-entry - head down, head down. Hamilton three seconds behind..."

Vettel: "I had nowhere to go. Seriously, I had nowhere to go. I did see him."

Adami: "Copy."

"Obviously it wasn't voluntarily going sailing across the track" Sebastian Vettel

Vettel: "I had to go through the grass, and you come back, he has amazing grip, where the hell am I supposed to go? I have grass on my wheels. It's his fault if he decides to go that way. If he goes to the inside he'd have gone past me."

Adami: "OK, stay focused, copy that, stay focused. Ten laps to go."

Vettel: "I am focused. But they are stealing the race from us."

Later, outside of the heat of competition, both drivers were able to reflect on the incident.

"I lost the rear of the car, so obviously it wasn't voluntarily going sailing across the track, not knowing how and in which fashion and so on I will be rejoining," said Vettel.

"I think it is pretty clear I was on the limit. I was pushing very hard throughout the entire race. Obviously I was going through the grass and I think it's quite commonly known that the grass isn't very grippy.

"Then I was coming back on track and just trying to make sure I have the car under control. Once I regained control, made sure it was sort-of alright, I looked in the mirrors, and saw Lewis right behind me."

Hamilton was certainly keen to make the pass there and then once Vettel had made the error, and it was logical that he stayed wide given where Vettel initially was.

"I was quicker at that point and I was really just trying to apply pressure to Seb," said Hamilton. "One, to try and get close enough, but two to push him into an error.

"It's not too often you're able to push a four-time world champion into making an error but it came and at the time I was like 'OK, great, this is my opportunity.'

"So I continued the corner as normal. I came around, and was on the line. The gap just closed, it looked like we were going to crash so I just had to brake and come off the gas to avoid a collision. Fortunately we did avoid it."

The penalty decision lay with the FIA stewards, among them well-respected five times Le Mans 24 Hours winner Emanuele Pirro. They deemed Vettel "rejoined the track at Turn 4 in an unsafe manner and forced car #44 off track. Car #44 had to take evasive action to avoid a collision".

This is in keeping with Appendix L of the FIA's International Sporting Code, which states a driver may rejoin after going off but only when safe to do so and without gaining an advantage. It also prohibits rejoining in a way that crowds another driver off track.

The stewards' verdict did not refer to gaining an advantage, or perhaps more appropriately for this case eliminating a disadvantage, so it was firmly a question of safety. Once they had decided Vettel did rejoin in an unsafe manner, a penalty was unavoidable and five seconds the minimum.

It's not an unreasonable conclusion given the bare facts of the case and the wording of the rules. Vettel did squeeze Hamilton into a small gap between his Ferrari and the wall, which put the Mercedes behind the exit kerb.

But he did so while trying to regain control and did leave just enough room, even if it did force Hamilton to check up to avoid contact.

Key to the decision was the evidence that Vettel allowed his Ferrari to run right towards the wall even once under control, which was the point where stewards deemed he had overstepped the mark. According to the rules, that was a perfectly reasonable interpretation.

Ideally, this should have gone down as spectacular racing and been allowed to slide. But sadly, once you have the hard and fast rules people keep clamouring for, the hands of the stewards are tied and they don't have the freedom simply to let it go.

Any sympathy for Vettel should be tempered, for this was ultimately of his making

The demand is always for consistency, but no two incidents are identical. All require interpretation, and it would have been better for racing had this one been let go.

The stewards did the right thing by the framework in which they operate, but F1 needs to give them more room for nuanced decisions because outcome does have to play a part in the ways these incidents are adjudicated.

So this one has to go down to systemic inflexibility and a bad case of ignoring the desire to 'let them race' - or rather of the structures in place not always allowing that to happen.

As Vettel himself put it: "it's not making our sport popular, these kinds of decisions".

Had Vettel hit Hamilton, it would be a different story. Had Vettel cut an asphalt run-off and kept his foot in, losing nothing, rather than having to correct a car that was all over the place on low-grip grass, it would have been a different story. Had he taken to the grass after braking late while Hamilton was alongside him, it would have been a different story.

Racing is all about millimetre-perfect moments of drama and this was a moment that should have been celebrated rather than condemned to infamy. This decision was best summed up as 'anti-racing'. Even Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, whose team benefited from it, described it as a "60/40" decision.

But while Vettel understandably kicked off at the punishment, he also needed to take aim at himself with that same booted foot. After all, the penalty would never have even been considered had he not made the initial mistake and the rear snapped on turn in.

At that point of the race, Hamilton was bearing down on him and the result was still far from a foregone conclusion. Once again, under pressure from Hamilton, Vettel made a mistake. And that's something that must not be overlooked given how it fits into the pattern of recent years. It also means that any sympathy for him should be tempered, for this was ultimately of his making.

It was unfortunate because, aside from that oh-so-costly moment, it was a perfect weekend for Vettel and Ferrari.

Ferrari set the pace in Friday practice, with Charles Leclerc to the fore, then in qualifying Vettel aced his second run to grab pole position from Hamilton.

Ferrari's advantage on the straights counteracted that of Mercedes in the turns by two tenths of a second, although Leclerc again underperformed on Saturday afternoon and allowed Hamilton to secure a front row starting spot by taking a distant third.

With the top three all starting on medium-compound Pirellis having used that spec of tyre to set their Q2 times, avoiding having to use the shortlived softs in the race, the early stages played out much as expected.

Vettel held the lead at the start with relative ease ahead of Hamilton and Leclerc, and quickly built up an advantage of a couple of seconds. With Max Verstappen starting ninth having failed to advance from Q2 thanks to Kevin Magnussen's ill-timed shunt, and Valtteri Bottas running sixth in the early stages having fallen behind Nico Hulkenberg's Renault after an underwhelming qualifying, the top three quickly broke off into their own independent race.

With a one-stop inevitable, the question was who would blink first and pit. It was Vettel, who was called in at the end of lap 26 and peeled into the pits with an advantage of 1.929s.

With all of the top three switching onto hards at their pitstops, the undercut was not potent but Hamilton had Bottas in an awkward position a stop's worth of time behind. So Mercedes opted to leave the championship leader out for two more laps once it was realised jumping Vettel by running longer was extremely unlikely thanks to the Ferrari's good out-lap pace. Hamilton stopped at the end of lap 28 and the pair's battle resumed.

Vettel gained out of the pitstops at first, and his advantage initially stabilised at around 4.5s after briefly stretching as high as 5s.

But Hamilton soon began his attack on Vettel, who reclaimed the lead on lap 33 when Leclerc pitted and rejoined fourth behind the long-running Verstappen.

By lap 38, Hamilton had the gap down to two seconds and, two laps later, he was within one. The battle was on and Vettel, keeping half an eye on his fuel management and seemingly not able to get as strong performance out of the hards as Hamilton could, was under pressure.

Then came Vettel's mistake. And from that point on, Hamilton had the race won even if he didn't yet know it.

Vettel did briefly threaten to build enough of a lead to hang on even with the time penalty, but his advantage never went beyond three seconds and Hamilton always had him covered.

Hamilton admitted after the race that his manner of victory left him feeling "deflated". After all, Hamilton himself won the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix on the road before being hit with a 25-second penalty for gaining an advantage by cutting the chicane, which was another correct and precise application of the rules but without room left for interpretation and common sense.

But he also deserves credit for the pressure he put on Vettel and, perhaps, without the penalty he might have been more aggressive and found a way past anyway?

Behind, Leclerc cycled back through to third when Verstappen pitted and dropped behind the lacklustre Bottas. He wasn't made aware of team-mate Vettel's penalty and might well have been able to find the 1.039s he needed to snatch second had he been told.

Bottas paid the price for a mistake on his first Q3 lap when he spun exiting Turn 2 after losing the rear over a bump and kissing the grass, with his consequent high-pressure single run a messy one of several lock-ups.

He then spent the early stages of the race down in seventh behind Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo before being released when that trio - who all had to start on softs - pitted. Once Verstappen eventually made his stop, Bottas moved up to finish fourth.

"The beginning of the race was tougher than I was hoping for," said Bottas. "I lost one position [to Hulkenberg] being boxed in into Turn 2 [behind Gasly]. There was a bit of a train of cars with DRS in the beginning. We were quite limited with engine overheating in the first stint and also the brakes overheating, so we followed close enough to put pressure on.

"I was waiting for the opportunity and eventually they boxed. By that time, I'd lost a lot of time to the top three cars. Then when I was in clear air it was OK, and it was the same in the second stint - I felt quick. Everything comes down to yesterday [underachieving in qualifying]."

Verstappen had run ninth early on, then passed Lando Norris's McLaren and picked up positions by running long. He had to overtake the Renaults of Ricciardo and Hulkenberg after making his stop, but emerged with a fifth place that was as strong a result as he was ever likely to get in the circumstances.

Setting aside the controversy of the weekend, the big picture upshot of Hamilton being promoted to first by Vettel's penalty and Bottas's difficult weekend is the gap in the championship battle between the Mercedes pair is now 29 points - with the Ferrari driver now 62 points down. Canada should have been a revival for Ferrari, but instead it was a seventh 2019 victory for Mercedes.

That Vettel didn't win can be partly blamed on the penalty and given Ferrari has attempted to appeal the arguments, debates will go on for some time.

But the fact another small mistake put him in that situation in the first place has to go down as another example of the Ferrari driver not quite being able to deal with Hamilton in pressure situations. And once the anger subsides, Vettel must also confront that harsh reality.