With respect to what Palmer or Rosberg said, there is a significant number of ex-drivers who believe Vettel should not have been penalized. Rosberg's opinion doesn't count, to put it bluntly, because I'm sure he made his decision before watching the video. He hasn't had a positive thing to say about Vettel in three years. He has his head so far up Hamilton's backside that I would suggest had he been that way from the start, he'd still be driving and having a good relationship with Hamilton. I don't have a problem with the penalty if it were enforced across the board, though there still are valid reasons to dispute the penalty. As for Vettel's tantrum versus how it would be treated if Hamilton did the same, I went on record before and said he should have been made to sit out a race or two after his freak out about Charlie Whiting. In the end, I believe Vettel has an argument as to why the penalty isn't warranted and there is a technical defence, and I can also see that there is a case for the penalty. My point is it should not have been handed out, given what's been allowed in the past. Again, track limits violations should be, in my view, sternly enforced, but that's not what the FIA has done for a few years already.
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
It was Hamilton that radio'd his team to tell them to notify officials so Hamilton can't throw his hands up and act like "don't blame me, I didn't make the decision". Now this part I don't know, but if Mercedes hadn't said something, would they still look at it ? Maybe, maybe not ? I presume they would still look at it on their own but since a racer basically requested a look, they gave Seb's actions more scrutiny.
As much as it pains me, I have to defend Hamilton on this. That's what the drivers have to do. They have to justify what they do and complain about what others do - this business of talking like lawyers, as Vettel put it. As it is, we've seen incidents over the years where it isn't clear who should be penalized but someone gets one anyhow, and the drivers are in the unfortunate position of having to plead a case briefly on the air.
I have a real problem with team radio and the issues it creates when we're exposed to it. We have to remember that FOM chooses what to broadcast on the air and they do it to make a show. I don't believe teams even have the authority to release extra portions of the exchanges (except by transcript), because of broadcast rights. FOM creates a climate and has created issues before. Look at what they did to manufacture the issue that caused team radio to be severely curtailed. FOM chose to broadcast a bunch of cryptic and technical radio exchanges about drivers being talked through changing steering wheel settings. Of course, commentators are going to notice this and they talk about what's said. FOM releases more of these, and all of a sudden, we're presented with an issue of drivers not driving the cars but being coached by engineers. FIA panics and bans all kinds of communication even to the point that reliability is endangered and there are even safety concerns. Drivers and teams get all annoyed and the FIA realizes the error and goes back to the old way of doing things. However, we don't hear nearly as many oddball exchanges about wheel settings between drivers and engineers. We hear some, but not like we did when FOM created this issue. The drivers and engineers are still going through settings, but we don't hear about it, because FOM chooses not to broadcast it.
Similarly, FOM can choose to release all of a driver's freak outs (and most tend to do it often enough) and whine fests or keep them hidden as they choose. They use team radio snippets to create drama (Hamilton's incessant tire complaints in Monaco) or comedy (Kimi is always good for something somewhere).