The FIA will take no further action over the start line crash at the Singapore Grand Prix which claimed Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen.
The trio ran three-wide off the grid with Verstappen (Red Bull) in the middle, and he hit Raikkonen (Ferrari) on his left.
That impact turned Raikkonen into the side of Vettel (Ferrari) before the Finn took out Verstappen and Fernando Alonso (McLaren) at Turn 1.
Vettel, meanwhile, maintained the lead but his car had sustained significant damage and he crashed out of the race moments later.
Neither Ferrari driver assigned blame for the incident in post-race interviews, while the team tweeted that Verstappen “took Kimi out,” but Verstappen believed Vettel was at fault.
However, after a post-race investigation, the FIA stewards announced none of the three drivers involved would be penalised, as nobody was “wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident.”
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“The stewards examined video evidence and heard from Sebastian Vettel, the driver of car 5, Kimi Raikkonen, the driver of car 7, Max Verstappen, the driver of car 33 and the team representatives,” read a statement from the FIA.
“Driver of car 7 had a very good start and was able to attempt overtaking on car 33 on the left-hand side.
“At the same time, car 5, which had a slower start, moved to the left-hand side of the track; car 33 and car 7 then collided resulting in a chain collision with car 5 and, ultimately, car 14 (Fernando Alonso) at the next turn.
“The stewards consider that no driver was found to have been wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident and will therefore take no further action.”
Explaining its original tweet, Ferrari added on its social media channel: “What we tweeted was a factual description of events. No need to speculate on this.”
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