Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel evidence 'flattering but confusing' says Karun Chandhok

Sebastian Vettel

Ferrari's Vettel evidence 'flattering but confusing'

What did you make of it all?

Matthew Scott

Monday 24 June 2019 18:25

Former F1 driver turned pundit Karun Chandhok says he was as baffled as anyone to see Ferrari use a piece of his analysis as evidence that Sebastian Vettel's Canadian Grand Prix penalty ought to have been reviewed and possibly overturned.

Ferrari arrived at the French Grand Prix still battling Vettel's Montreal sanction, claiming to have "overwhelming" evidence that a review ought to be carried out.

However, that amounted to Chandhok's analysis of his incident with Lewis Hamilton and a driver-facing camera angle – neither of which were accepted by the FIA, meaning Hamilton's win stood.

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Given Ferrari's claims beforehand, the revelation of what had been contained in their dossier left the team in a somewhat embarrassing position, with the man thrust int o the centre of it all similarly baffled.

"I actually stayed away from France to have a weekend at home with my family," Chandhok wrote in his Sky Sports column.

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"I was hoping for a nice quiet time but then my phone and Twitter feed went a bit crazy on Friday because Ferrari had apparently submitted my analysis of the Vettel-Hamilton incident from Montreal as part of their evidence to the FIA for their appeal.

"I knew nothing about it, and was in fact in the middle of a shoot for a car show when my phone started buzzing non-stop. While I was of course flattered to hear that a team as big and great as Ferrari felt that my analysis was worth including in their appeal submission, it also seemed confusing to me that they chose to do so.

The FIA were right to disregard this bit of analysis in the appeal because there's no way that a third party's opinion, especially someone who's working as a TV broadcaster, would count as factual evidence.

"Anyway, judging by the text messages I got, the whole thing proved to be the cause of much entertainment amongst my friends in the paddock over the weekend!"