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Did Sebastian overtake under a yellow flag?

Sebastian Vettel yellow flag incident

During the commentary of this morning’s Brazilian Grand Prix the Sky TV team made reference to an incident where they thought Sebastian Vettel may have overtaken Kamui Kobayashi under yellow flag conditions. We didn’t see the footage here in Australia, but now you can watch the replay and Sky’s post-race analysis with Allan McNish to decide for yourself.

We understand the race stewards have looked at the incident and given Vettel the all clear. However, this is what Sky’s F1 commentator Martin Brundle had to say: “I’ve spoken to Gary Connolly, one of the race stewards, and he has absolutely confirmed that they were red-and-yellow boards—didn’t look much like that from the somewhat grainy and rainy yellow on-board footage, did it?”

Clearly if Vettel was deemed to have passed under yellow flag conditions it could have had severe ramifications for his championship hopes. We think Vettel can probably consider himself lucky and was probably helped by the fact Kobayashi dived into pitlane shortly after being overtaken.

[Thanks to Graeme for the tip]

UPDATE 28 November: Looks like Vettel should get the all clear on the Kobayashi pass featured by Sky Sports F1, but as highlighted already in the comments section there is another pass, which wasn’t shown on the main TV feed, where it does appear that Vettel overtook a Toro Rosso under yellow flag conditions: http://youtu.be/LFER0esusF0
(Thanks to Tom for alerting me to this.)

UPDATE 29 November: Ferrari is now considering a protest, which could alter the result of the world championship.

10 replies on “Did Sebastian overtake under a yellow flag?”

The red/yellow wouldn’t differentiate very well on TV, particularly in that sort of weather through the lower quality on board cameras.
Some people have suggested that the electronic flags don’t have the red/yellow available, but it definately is – you can see the button and indicator lights on here:

http://p.twimg.com/AwUGBWACQAArMAU.jpg

actually, in the zoomed in picture, there is what appears to be a CCD reflection of the Electronic Flag on the inside of the camera lens that is slightly stripy….. and no, I’m not taking the piss!

RedHairyDogsBalls always play dirty tactics. Ferrari should of gave Massa secret orders to shunt Vettel off off the track. At least Massa could have been good for something because he’s absolutely crap at everything else. I can’t stand Vettel, I hope he never wins another WC ever again, and I hate a fizzy drink company winning in F1. Absolute zero heritage!

I’m not a Ferrari fan at all, but I do believe Alonso is the best F1 steerer out there at the moment by a country mile. When the experts and former F1 racers are asked who is the best at the moment, unanimously they all say “Alonso”, not Vettel the silly smirking brat who has the most superiorly deigned car (thanks to Adrian Newey) but can only win by a couple of points at the end of the season. Shows how crap he and his pit team / mechanics are! Yeh I know how shite is Webber? Alot!!!

Looks like Vettel should get the all clear on the Kobayashi pass featured by Sky Sports F1, but as highlighted by uoj there is another pass that wasn’t shown on the main feed where it does appear that Vettel overtook a Toro Rosso under yellow flag conditions…

http://youtu.be/LFER0esusF0

(Thanks to Tom for alerting me to this.)

The only overtake that was illegal was the overtake on JEV. All others have been proven to be legal.
What you have in the image there is a ‘slippery track’ warning light

That’s correct (for the first two). With the JEV overtake it seems as though there was a green flag being waved by the marshal just after the Turn 3/Pit exit. You can see the flag post in the video, but it is difficult to confirm the colour (although it doesn’t look yellow).

In this pic it is clearly green: http://i49.tinypic.com/212bl1c.jpg

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