Vettel is left cursing as safety car

SEBASTIAN Vettel was left cursing the stewards after failing to win yet another race from pole, with salt rubbed into the wounds as Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber romped to victory in Hungary yesterday.

Only once from seven pole positions this year has Vettel taken the chequered flag and but for a safety car, a dodgy radio and those stewards, he would have improved that statistic at the Hungaroring.

When the safety car was deployed at the end of lap 15, Vettel had built up a cushion of more than 10 seconds to Ferrari's Fernando Alonso at the time and seemed set to cruise to the line. But a piece of the front wing from Vitantonio Liuzzi's Force India was too dangerous for a marshall to retrieve from the middle of the track, bringing the safety car into play.

It caused mayhem, with Vettel himself forced into braking late and cutting across a kerb running alongside the pit lane in order to make his stop for tyres.

When the safety car came in two laps later - and at that stage he was behind Webber who had not pitted - he was caught napping as he was a considerable distance adrift of the Australian. Vettel blamed his in-car radio for not working properly, so missing the call the safety car was coming in.

As for the stewards, they determined he had broken the rules as he was more than 10 car lengths behind Webber, leading to the 23-year-old receiving a drive-through penalty. When Vettel served it soon after, he raised his fists in anger as he drove through the pit lane, and then after stepping out of the car he remonstrated with Herbie Blasch, the FIA's race observer.

He said later: "People told me what happened. I don't like it, but I can't change it now. At the re-start I was sleeping. I was probably relying too much on the radio, but somewhere in the first stint I lost the radio and I didn't hear anything.

"I don't know how much time I lost, too much. It wasn't acceptable and I paid the penalty.

"When I got the drive-through, I was pretty angry, and I then had to finish the race for 30 laps behind Fernando.

The positive for Vettelis that he is within 10 points of new leader Webber and six behind Lewis Hamilton, who retired on lap 24 with a rare mechanical failure to his McLaren, in this case the gearbox.

It all meant Webber was given "a bit of a gift," his description of his fourth win this season and the sixth of his career.

He added: "It's an incredible day for the team. Another win. Although one-two was our goal, we unfortunately didn't get that but still got a big chunk of the points, so it was a good day."

During the safety car period the majority of the field dived into the pits, with the chaos sparked when Mercedes' Nico Rosberg lost the right-rear tyre as he exited. It then rolled and bounced its way through the pit crews, knocking unconscious Williams mechanic Nigel Hope, who has a suspected fractured rib.

In the mayhem, Renault's lollipop man released Robert Kubica too early, resulting in the Pole ploughing into Force India's Adrian Sutil as he pulled into his pit entry box.

Kubica later served a 10 second stop-go penalty for an unsafe release from the pits, only to retire soon after, whilst Mercedes and Renault have been fined $50,000 for the same offence.

Felipe Massa was fourth and although reigning champion Jenson Button was embarrassingly a lap down in eighth, remarkably he is still 14 points behind the new championship leader - just as he started the race.