Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel were called to the Stewards room after their championship-clinching victory at the Buddh International Circuit in India today for a chat about the post-race donut celebration they treated the fans to.
Post-race celebrations such as donuts, fence climbing and other shenanigans are highly frowned upon in Formula 1 but ironically they are highly appreciated by the fans of the sport when a driver and team celebrate their achievement in a display of fun and exuberance.
While fans tend to like the sights and sounds of post-race celebrations, there is a regulatory reason for the FIA’s staunch disapproval. The series is highly regulated to prevent teams from skirting weight limits on their cars. The car is to immediately be brought back into Parc Ferme for scrutinizing to ensure it complies with the regulations.
The Steward statement read via AUTOSPORT:
“The driver failed to proceed directly to the post race parc ferme as detailed under article 43.3 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.
“Due to the special circumstances the Stewards accepted the explanation of the driver.
“The team failed to instruct the driver sufficiently to return directly to post race parc ferme.”
To be honest, the team feel lucky to have been handed this reprimand—Vettel’s first of the season—as they weren’t sure their car was going to make it to the end of the race. Vettel’s teammate, Mark Webber, retired on lap 40 with an alternator problem and while the Australian was miffed by the incident, team boss Christian Horner says that Vettel’s car was signaling an issue too as AUTOSPORT reports:
“After the failure on Mark’s car which was sudden, there was no reason to expect that it would not happen on the other car,” said Horner.
“Immediately we tried to reduce the amount of draw on the alternator as much as possible which included even turning off the KERS in the end.
“There was then a problem with the sensor on the alternator which gave us even more heart in mouth moments.
“But in the meantime, Sebastian is lighting up the timing screen with purple sectors, so there were some heart-stopping moments in there.
“But thankfully the car got to the end and Sebastian did what he needed to. It was just tremendously cruel luck not to have Mark right up there as well.”
It was close call so a reprimand for post-race celebrations is the least of their worries as the team head to Abu Dhabi as the 2013 World Champions.
