The Penalties Fly

By Andrew Cutler
September 30 2007

A day that at one point held out the promise of STR scoring it's first ever podium finish has now come completely unravelled. In addition to Sebastian Vettel having been cited by the FIA for causing an avoidable accident, Vitantonio Liuzzi has subsequently been stripped of his eighth place finish.

Vettel's rear-ending of Mark Webber's RBR car has been deemed to be an avoidable incident, and thus a violation of Article 16.1 of the F1 Sporting Regulations. As a result, he will face a ten spot grid penalty after qualifications for next week's Chinese GP are concluded.

For his part, Liuzzi has been found to have passed the Spyker of Adrian Sutil during a caution period on lap 55 of today's race. His fine was a 25 second penalty added to his GP completion time, which effectively moved him back into ninth finishing spot, behind Sutil.