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Schumacher Thinks Vettel's Penalty is Undeserved

Sebastian Vettel's penalty following the race incident in the penultimate lap of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix did not leave the world of Formula One speechless. The German driver bumped into BMW's Robert Kubica when the latter tried to pass him for 2nd place, and was later handed a 10-grid penalty by the Australian race stewards for the upcoming F1 event.

While several drivers have agreed that Vettel got what he deserved – including the Red Bull Racing driver himself – 7-time world champion insisted his fellow countryman was little to blame for the incident. The Ferrari consultant said Vettel had no possibility of avoiding the impact with Kubica's car.

“He (Vettel) was on the inside – he couldn't make his car dissolve into thin air,” argued Schumacher in an interview for German newspaper Bild.

Shortly after the accident, Vettel apologized to his team via the radio for the “stupid accident”. Also, when confronted by the race stewards, he was quite honest about his mistake and furthermore apologized to Kubica for ending his race. Later on, the BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen argued that, if Kubica had passed the German, he would have had a great chance of catching up Button too for the race win.

“We were in second and a strong position, but then, a couple of laps from the end, I had a stupid racing accident with Robert (Kubica). At the time I turned in I was ahead, but I couldn't keep up speed in the corner and Robert was on a harder tyre, so was much quicker. At the time we collided he was in front, but I had nowhere to go, I couldn't stop the car, or turn to the right and my tires were gone.”

“I'm sorry to the team and also to Robert, as it didn't just mean the end of my race, but also his. The team did a good job, we were working very hard over the winter and the car seems to be very good. We had good pace today, so overall we have a reason to smile,” said Vettel after the race.

The German driver was also fined $50,000 for not parking his car immediately after hitting the wall in the penultimate lap of the race (shortly after the aforementioned incident with Kubica).
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