Turkish Grand Prix 2010 - Webber vs Vettel

Red Bull Formula One Drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, in happier times.


By now we've all seen the lap 41 incident. And were it just two rival drivers colliding, we wouldn't be half as interested. But it involved teammates. And not just teammates (I mean would anyone really care if Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovaleinen put each other in the fence?) but teammates who just happen to be leading both the Driver's and Constructor's championships.

On lap 48 of the Turkish Grand Prix, Red Bull teammates Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are running first and second respectively. As they approach turn 12, (see above circuit layout) a sharp left hand turn, Webber, who's in the lead, holds a line center left, and in fact goes even further left as Vettel passes. Vettel, from second place, pulls out from behind Webber and jinks right before overtaking him on the left. As Vettel completes his pass from the extreme left of the circuit his right rear wheel makes contact with Webber's left front wheel, causing Vettel to spin and retire with a punctured right rear tire, and causing Webber to overshoot the corner. He would rejoin and finish in third place. Now, there's all types of speculation regarding strategical details of the incident regarding fuel loads, engine settings, team orders, etc. However, we're concerned with the crime scene, not what happened in the pits. First, the video. The incident is seen from two viewpoints: first a wide angle shot of both cars, then on board with Sebastian Vettel.



What do you see from the above video? After watching it, whom would you say is at fault? Popular opinion has placed the blame on Sebastian Vettel, (not just because he's German and aggressive) with most journalists and fans basing their opinion on the video evidence of Webber holding his line and Vettel turning right and making contact when he is only about 80% past Webber. A popular SpeedChannel commentator even said that Webber protected the racing line and that Vettel should have known what to expect when passing an aggressive driver like Mark Webber, evidently attempting some type of blame the victim defense.

Mark Webber is wrong. And here's why. Mark Webber apologists maintain that Webber held the racing line and Vettel turned into him. That's not correct. Mark Webber held his line, not the racing line. The "racing line" (An imaginary line around a circuit that has been proven to be the most efficient and quickest route around the circuit) for the entry to the approaching sharp left hander is to the far right. As an example (and to show off my excellent MS Paint skills) look at the picture below. Click to enlarge.

The picture on the right is taken from Mark Webber's qualifying lap. The picture on the left is from lap 41, at the moment Vettel and Webber made contact. Notice where Webber's car is on the right picture. As a reference I've circled the 150 meter board. In the right picture, taken from his qualifying lap, you can see that Webber is to the right side of the track, on the racing line, setting up his car for the correct entry to turn 12. That's the racing line. Now look at the left picture, and the video if necessary, and see where Webber's car is on the track when Vettel made contact. Definitely not on the racing line, as so many Webber supporters have claimed.

Therein lies the crucial difference. Mark Webber did not maintain the racing line. Actually what Webber did is very carefully and intentionally hold his steering wheel straight and he admitted as much after the race, as though this somehow made everything OK. Holding the steering wheel straight ahead at that moment is definitely not the same thing as holding the racing line. Now who had a right to the racing line? I would argue that Vettel was clearly ahead at the point of contact. He wasn't past Webber, otherwise there would have been no contact, but he was definitely ahead, and if on approach to the corner had Webber turned into him, there would be no debate as to who was at fault. So the corner clearly belongs to Vettel, but contact was made before reaching the turn-in point, so we're left with who had a right to the racing line. Webber has said repeatedly in post race interviews, that the contact happened, "well before the braking zone" and I think he's right, I seem to remember him braking somewhere shortly after the 100 meter board. By virtue of the fact that Vettel had not passed him completely, the racing line, the far right portion of the track, belongs to Webber. The best that Vettel can hope for, without having passed Webber completely before the corner, is an out braking attempt off line before turn-in. Vettel did what racing drivers in any formula do every day, expect that the driver they are overtaking will, at the very least, make an attempt to return to the racing line before the corner entry. The fact that Webber made no attempt to return to racing line indicates that he was happy forcing the issue which, at best, would result in both drivers either missing the corner or slowing so greatly that the pursuing McLarens would have gone past.

If Webber had been on the racing line on the approach to the corner, and Vettel, being mostly past, had attempted to push over into Webber, then it would be a grey zone, two into one, "racing incident" type scenario, with probably 75% of the blame going to Vettel. In this case though, Mark Webber saw that he had no chance to defend the position and stubbornly held his wheel straight, well off the racing line, and Vettel and Red Bull paid the price.