Vettel feels that only a real finish flag should end a Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel has admitted that only a checkered flag should count when ending a race in F1. Most recently, at the Japanese Grand Prix, the race ended prematurely due to a system error. This happened because the light panel was activated too early, meaning the results were recorded a lap early.

This enabled Vettel to retain second place ahead of Lewis Hamilton who was closing down the German to the end.

"From a driver's perspective it is very simple: there was no black and white checkered flag, " Vettel said.

"We have the pit board that gives us information about the laps, we also see on the dashboard how many are still to go.

I saw that we still had one lap and got the radio message that it was the last one, even though there was some confusion because the timing system determines the flag drop. "