Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel was on Sunday demoted to last place on the Bahrain Grand Prix grid for flouting a yellow flag warning in qualifying. The German’s first outing for his new Aston Martin team has not gone as he might have hoped so far. He said he was “upset and angry” after trailing in 18th behind Red Bull’s pole sitter Max Verstappen in Saturday’s qualifying.
And now he has picked up a grid penalty from race stewards for failing to slow down when yellow flags were deployed during his final Q1 run, related to incidents involving Nikita Mazepin’s Haas and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, the man who replaced him at Maranello.
The stewards observed that Vettel “had already passed the signal panel when it was illuminated as he approached the scene and that the marshals in that turn had not yet reacted with a yellow flag.
“Nevertheless, Vettel was approaching a car that was stopped sideways on the track and by the rule this would necessitate a double yellow flag.”
He was also handed three penalty points to be added to his racing licence.