Sebastian Vettel’s Penalty Reactions Hurt Noted Steward Emanuele Pirro

One of the strangest and most talked about issues of the current 2019 season happens to be the five-second penalty that Sebastian Vettel copped up recently. At the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix, the German driver, in a bid to steer clear of a fast catching Lewis Hamilton who was challenging for the track position, made an erroneous move and would be handed a penalty.

This would spoil Sebastian Vettel’s race and would see him miss out narrowly on what would’ve been a fantastic win for the former world champion. In many ways, therefore, the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix spelt an unprecedented disaster for the former Red Bull driver, someone who’s last Ferrari win came over six months back in time, at the 2018 Grand Prix of Belgium.

Resultantly, Sebastian Vettel and the team would once again give into the sheer dominance of Mercedes, their clear antithesis for the 2019 season, thus far.

But implicit in this heartening race for the Italian team and its numero uno driver Sebastian Vettel rests the tail of an FIA Steward. This is not some random disclosure. It’s a heart-warming saga where an FIA steward confessed to feeling hurt in lines with the reaction given by several motorsports drivers (and icons) concerning the time-penalty handed to Sebastian Vettel, a four-time world champion.

So what exactly happened? Well, here’s what you ought to know.

Italian steward Emanuele Pirro shared that he was hurt by the reactions that several former drivers had to share in lines with the controversial penalty that saw the Ferrari driver being demoted to second, hence, promoting Hamilton up the order toward his fifth race win.

Here’s what Pirro had to say-

Fortunately, I also had many expressions of solidarity from F1 and racing people,” said Pirro, a five-times Le Mans winner who raced in 37 Grands Prix, and a man who has often officiated as an FIA drivers steward.

“It hurts, however, that great former racers like Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell have said what they said.” He would continue to add, “A thousand battles have been fought for the safety and indeed that also includes how a race is conducted.

“As a fan of racing and of Ferrari in particular, I am sorry that the race ended like this.”