Sebastian Vettel was reportedly reprimanded by the FIA after Valencia
After questioning the impartiality of the race management, which in Valencia had decided to deploy a safety car that allegedly proved fatal for the alternator of his RB8, Sebastian Vettel was reportedly invited by the FIA to mind his manners.
It is no longer a secret, as he himself admits: Sebastian Vettel does not have a good temper, especially in defeat! After making himself known at the start of the season in Sepang with a middle finger gesture towards Narain Karthikeyan, whom he called a “cucumber” after the race, Sebastian Vettel again demonstrated his bad temper following his retirement due to an alternator failure on his RB8. The German threw his gloves in anger against the fence of the Valencia circuit and then at a camera, a gesture that, in the heat of the moment, could be excused by the frustration felt by the Red Bull driver who had been outrageously dominating the race up until that point.
But on the air of Sky Germany, the double title holder did not hesitate to point the finger at the race direction for the safety car intervention which, according to him, was not necessary: « I think we could have avoided the safety car period. I think the reason is clear. I don’t believe there was any danger. There were debris on the track before that and it was acceptable. I think in some way, the safety car aimed to clip our wings. »
Already sent back to the ropes by Hans-Joachim Stuck, president of the German Motor Sports Association (DMSB), who invited him to learn to be a good loser, Sebastian Vettel is said to have been advised to watch his manners by the FIA, which reportedly placed him under an unofficial form of probation, according to the Kolner Express: “We know that quite often Vettel speaks harshly in the heat of disappointment, which is not a good example,” an FIA official confided anonymously to the German newspaper.
After the incidents involving Lewis Hamilton in Melbourne in 2010 and in Monaco in 2011, and following various scandals that have tarnished the image of Formula One in recent years, the International Automobile Federation has taken measures to promote ethics, notably through a code of good conduct attached to the sporting code. This code stipulates, among other things, that « any FIA licensee and any participant in international events commit themselves […], through their words, actions, or writings, not to bring moral or material harm to the FIA, its bodies, its members, or its leaders, and more generally to the interest of motorsport and the values defended by the FIA ».
