Prepping for his 2022 season debut in Melbourne, Sebastian Vettel was fined € 5,000 (£4,169) for riding a moped back to the pit lane during practice. The Aston Martin driver will be seen in action at the Australian GP qualifying on Saturday.
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Vettel decided to rider a marshal’s moped back into the pit lane after his Aston Martin suffered an engine failure. The four-time F1 champion had by then completed 18 laps in the first practice. He also had to extinguish the smoke coming out of the engine of his car.
With the session red-flagged, Sebastian Vettel took a ride on the marshal’s scooter, waving at the crowd assembled at the Albert Park circuit, Melbourne.
However, officials called the 34-year-old in for “entering the track without permission”. He was fined for “unauthorised use of a scooter on the track”.
The Australian GP stewards concluded that Vettel had breached Article 26.7 of the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations. It “prohibits anyone being on the track in the five minute period after the end of a session, with the exception of specifically identified personnel, which makes no provision for drivers to have such access unless specifically authorized”.
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Vettel’s engine failure could not be fixed for the second practice.
“Obviously we had a problem and there was a bit of smoke and I lost power so we had to stop the car on track. I did the best I could to limit the damage and get off the track as soon as possible. It stopped our running which was painful and unfortunately it lost us our whole session this afternoon,” Vettel said.
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“I haven’t been in the car for a while and plus this track is different. It will be fine tomorrow but it would have been nice to get more laps.”
The 34-year-old German missed the first two races of the F1 season — in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia — because of his coronavirus infection.
