{"id":16981,"date":"2012-11-04T07:28:22","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T12:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=16981"},"modified":"2012-11-04T07:28:22","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T12:28:22","slug":"title-blown-wide-open-as-vettel-kicked-out-of-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/title-blown-wide-open-as-vettel-kicked-out-of-qualifying\/","title":{"rendered":"Title blown wide open as Vettel kicked out of qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

The battle for the world championship has been blown wide open, with Sebastian Vettel set to start Sunday’s Abu Dhabi grand prix – the third last race of 2012 – from the pitlane.<\/p>\n

\"R12Abd-F1-05\"Having raced into a runaway lead in the points standings with four wins on the trot in his dominant Red Bull, the German pulled over after qualifying third at Yas Marina.<\/p>\n

Immediately afterwards, team boss Christian Horner said engine supplier Renault had made the call.<\/p>\n

“We saw something on the telemetry and did not want to risk the engine,” said the French marque’s Remi Taffin, according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.<\/p>\n

However, as Red Bull and Renault could actually demonstrate to the FIA there was a genuine problem, the team escaped sanction at that point.<\/p>\n

The team’s problems, however, were not over, as the stewards looked into the incident for almost five hours after qualifying.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, scrutineers were unable to extract enough fuel from Vettel’s RB8 for the mandatory 1-litre testing sample.<\/p>\n

The stewards sent Vettel to the back of the grid.<\/p>\n

“We will withdraw the car from parc ferme in order to investigate further,” said Horner, admitting the action will mean a pitlane start for Vettel.<\/p>\n

The only good news is that Red Bull can install a new engine for Vettel without further penalty, even though the German has already run through his 2012 allocation of eight V8 units.<\/p>\n

Horner however said the 25-year-old will have a “busy evening” on Sunday to minimise the likely damage to his championship bid, with Fernando Alonso promoted on the grid to sixth.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard is currently 13 points behind Vettel, and so it is possible a podium finish on Sunday can give him back the world championship lead.<\/p>\n

“This is an opportunity I have to use well,” Ferrari’s Alonso is quoted by SID news agency.<\/p>\n

“For sure,” Auto Motor und Sport quotes him adding, “the race will be easier with Vettel starting from the back.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The battle for the world championship has been blown wide open, with Sebastian Vettel set to start Sunday’s Abu Dhabi grand prix – the third last race of 2012 – from the pitlane. Having raced into a runaway lead in the points standings with four wins on the trot in his dominant Red Bull, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[2348,128,5262,149,93,5300,5340,129,164,2312],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16982,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981\/revisions\/16982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}