It was the fitting end to a curious Formula 1 race: both winner Esteban Ocon and runner-up Sebastian Vettel did not park their cars in the so-called Parc Fermé as planned. Ocon missed the pit lane entrance in the jubilation, with Vettel the remaining fuel in his Aston Martin was not enough. And exactly now has consequences for the German: Vettel is disqualified and loses second place in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The technical regulations stipulate that there must be at least one liter of petrol in the car after a race. That was not the case with Vettel, at the time of the inspection there were only 0.3 liters of gasoline in the tank. The technical delegate reported this to the race stewards, who at a hastily convened hearing – in Vettel’s absence – decided on a disqualification.
Vettel had been advised by his team before the end of the race to save fuel. In the lap of honor, Vettel’s race engineer repeated the announcement, so that the four-time world champion parked his racing car just before the twelfth corner. Formula 1 cars consume around two liters of fuel on one lap on a track like in Hungary, Vettel could probably have avoided disqualification at an earlier stop.
Vettel thus loses 18 World Cup points that are available for second place. World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton moves up to second place and thus gets three points more, Carlos Sainz jr. is new third. Hamilton’s pursuer Max Verstappen landed in tenth place, and for ninth place he now gets two instead of one world championship point.
Aston Martin is considering a protest. According to team boss Otmar Szafnauer, according to calculations by the racing team, there was still 1.44 liters of petrol in the tank and the problem was a defective pump. The racing team now has four days to appeal.
