2009 world champion Jenson Button has urged the sport to move on from last Sunday's controversial incident during the Azerbaijan GP, the Briton suggesting that Sebastian Vettel has been punished enough.

Taking to Twitter this morning, Button, who replaced Fernando Alonso in Monaco last month, wrote: "Azerbaijan GP was a pleasure 2 watch. Why? because adrenaline & emotions were high. What Vettel did was silly but he's been punished. Move on."

F1 racer turned commentator Martin Brundle, in response to Button's tweet, added: "Indeed JB. In a normal race and w/out @LewisHamilton headrest problem that would have been a significant and deserved penalty."

"Agree with you mate," Button replied, “if a driver at racing speed forces another driver off track he would get less punishment than a 10sec drive through."

In response to tweets from fans that the incident was "road rage", Button said: "I don't think you can class it as road rage when it's not on the road!"

Ever since the incident after the second Safety Car re-start debate has raged over whether Vettel deliberately drove into Hamilton who he had accused of brake testing him.

The stewards deemed that barging into the Mercedes was a "potentially dangerous" act and imposed a 10s stop and go penalty, though this wasn't enough for Hamilton who was in radio contact with (race director) Charlie Whiting during the race urging that Vettel's punishment should have been more harsh.

While data proved that Hamilton did not brake test Vettel, the FIA, under instruction from Jean Todt, has announced that it is to further investigate the incident, a move which could see the German further penalised, the Ferrari driver already 'on a warning' following his expletive laden comments aimed at Whiting during last year's Mexican Grand Prix.

In reaction to news of the investigation, Brundle tweeted: "Big decision for FIA if they're going to overrule their own system, processes and Stewards. I know, love and want raw F1 with real warriors."

Neither Ferrari nor Vettel has reacted to the investigation, which would, should the German receive a race ban or exclusion from last Sunday's results, compromise his title bid.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by 4-Wheel Drifter, 30/06/2017 17:26

"I'm with J.B. all the way in this matter. Let the drivers sort these things out. Or not. But 'sanctioning' or 'not sanctioning' drivers' 'behavior' is bringing 'political correctness' to an absurd level. Would you like to have poker without bluffing? In F1 the players are risking their lives; expecting gentlemanly behavior is nuts."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by Hobgoblin, 30/06/2017 8:48

"@RDFox: Maybe what you are saying about acceleration and throttle use is technically correct, but the stewards - who had ALL of the data to hand when making their judgement - deemed that Lewis didn't do anything different to the previous times around that corner under the safety car.
Seb got caught out, and lost the plot, but his response to that goes beyond acceptability. When my kids react like that, they get more than a 10 second penalty."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by RDFox, 30/06/2017 1:40

"You know, I'd like to note the elephant in the room that everyone is conveniently ignoring. No, Lewis didn't brake-check Vettel, because he didn't hit his brakes. However, that doesn't mean that he didn't EFFECTIVELY brake-check him by not applying the throttle at the normal point. With the acceleration that F1 cars have these days, you don't need to touch the brakes to have the effect of a brake-check--you just need to delay hitting the throttle by a half-second or so. And given that lifting off generates about 1G of braking effect in a modern F1 car, if you just "blip" off the throttle for a fraction of a second before opening it to accelerate out of the corner, you'll certainly get the same result.

I miss the old days, when the sport flew "under the radar" enough that drivers could resolve their disputes privately, the way that racers traditionally did, WITHOUT constant penalties being assessed to force everyone to be good little homogenized corporate spokesmen with no real personality..."

Rating: Negative (-1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

4. Posted by Ro, 29/06/2017 20:32

"How about "unsportsman behaviour" or "bringing the sport into direpute" ??? He acted like a teenage thug. A 10 second penalty ? Joke...."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

5. Posted by testa rossa, 29/06/2017 16:56

"Sergio Marchionne and John Elkann are already in contact with Todt ....You want to sleep with the fishes Jean ?"

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

6. Posted by Hobgoblin, 29/06/2017 14:19

"Disappointed with Jenson for this - I thought he was an advocate of a safer sport.
As for dismissing it as 'not road rage as it's not on the road' is splitting hairs. It was road rage pure and simple. And if you are going to split hairs, then it was still road rage as it was on the roads of Baku city."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

Baku: Button urges sport to move on

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page